Motion passing, then ignored later

[Guest Eddie Coolidge]

In my area in the recent past, an issue was concluded with a motion passing the City Council requiring the city attorney as well as the county attorney to be present at the upcoming special meeting. When the special meeting occurred, neither the city attorney nor the county attorney were present, going against the spirit of the motion. The meeting went forward, and decisons were made. Is there a procedural remedy to this? Or is this a matter for the state/ ethics violation. I don't understand how there can be motions that count, and others that do not. Thank you for reading

[Joshua Katz]

I don't quite see why you say it violated only the spirit; by your summary it seems to have violated the letter. Anyway, does the city council have the authority to make those people show up, or was it worded as a requirement on the council? In any case, it's unlikely to be grounds to invalidate anything at the meeting if no objection was raised at the time. All motions count, but that doesn't mean there's a remedy. What happened at the second meeting? Why did no one say, hey, where are these people? 

[Richard Brown]

Agreeing with Mr. Katz, I do not see this as an issue, at least not as a parliamentary one nor one concerning RONR. If it is an issue, it is a legal or internal one concerning your city council and city officials and is outside the scope of RONR and this forum.

[Gary Novosielski]

On 3/16/2024 at 6:21 PM, Guest Eddie Coolidge said:

In my area in the recent past, an issue was concluded with a motion passing the City Council requiring the city attorney as well as the county attorney to be present at the upcoming special meeting. When the special meeting occurred, neither the city attorney nor the county attorney were present, going against the spirit of the motion. The meeting went forward, and decisons were made. Is there a procedural remedy to this? Or is this a matter for the state/ ethics violation. I don't understand how there can be motions that count, and others that do not. Thank you for reading

Why did the meeting go forward?  If nobody objected at the time, it seems too late to do so now.  It's hard to see how a continuing breach would be created, although I supposed it might depend on what decisions  were made.

[Guest Eddie Coolidge]

Thank you for your replies. There was grumbling at the second meeting, but due to apathy and pressure from the chair, it went forward. I think the above posters are correct, this is outside your forum at this point

[Josh Martin]

On 3/16/2024 at 5:21 PM, Guest Eddie Coolidge said:

In my area in the recent past, an issue was concluded with a motion passing the City Council requiring the city attorney as well as the county attorney to be present at the upcoming special meeting. When the special meeting occurred, neither the city attorney nor the county attorney were present, going against the spirit of the motion.

I think it violated more than the spirit of the motion. It seems to me it directly violated exactly what the motion said.

I would note, however, that while it may be that the City Council has the authority to order the City Attorney to attend its meetings (depending on exactly how the city government is structured), I'm generally skeptical that the City Council would have the authority to issue orders to the County Attorney. Perhaps it should have been phrased as an invitation to the County Attorney rather than a requirement.

On 3/16/2024 at 5:21 PM, Guest Eddie Coolidge said:

Is there a procedural remedy to this?

I don't think so. It seems more like an employee relations issue (and intergovernmental relations issue) than a parliamentary one.

On 3/17/2024 at 11:02 AM, Gary Novosielski said:

Why did the meeting go forward?

I guess I'm not sure why it wouldn't go forward, but perhaps we have different understandings of what the purpose of the motion was.

Edited March 17, 2024 at 04:36 PM by Josh Martin

[Gary Novosielski]

On 3/17/2024 at 12:35 PM, Josh Martin said:

I guess I'm not sure why it wouldn't go forward, but perhaps we have different understandings of what the purpose of the motion was.

Well, if the meeting was not convened as previously agreed, I presume the absence of the attorneys would have been obvious. I would expect that someone might have commented on this situation before the meeting went forward.  I guess it depends how important their absence was to whatever the purpose of the meeting was.

[Josh Martin]

On 3/17/2024 at 1:10 PM, Gary Novosielski said:

Well, if the meeting was not convened as previously agreed, I presume the absence of the attorneys would have been obvious. I would expect that someone might have commented on this situation before the meeting went forward.  I guess it depends how important their absence was to whatever the purpose of the meeting was.

Yes, and as I said, perhaps we have different understandings of what the purpose of the motion was. I can think of two possible interpretations of what was intended by this motion.

• That the motion was intended as an instruction to the City Attorney and County Attorney to attend the meeting in question. (I'm not sure how a City Council believes it could instruct the County Attorney, but that's a separate issue.) Under this interpretation, it would seem to me that if these persons failed to attend, the council may be rather upset with the attorneys, but it's not clear to me it means the meeting should be adjourned.
   
• That the motion was intended to provide that the meeting would not be held unless the City Attorney and County Attorney attended the meeting in question. That is, the motion was intended as an instruction to the council itself, rather than as an instruction to the attorneys. (I also suppose these two purposes are not mutually exclusive.)

Edited March 18, 2024 at 12:52 PM by Josh Martin