@startleseasily is a fervent observer of the Metro government's comings and goings. In this column, "On First Reading," she'll recap the bimonthly Metro Council meetings and provide her analysis. You can find her in the pew in the corner by the mic, ready to give public comment on whichever items stir her passions. Follow her on Twitter here.
The time was 8:49 p.m. Already on bills that were on third reading, the Metro Council appeared poised to wrap up their second meeting of the month in a little over two hours. I was overjoyed.
It was too good to be true.
It Takes Two to Net Tango
As Vice Mayor Angie Henderson prepared to rattle off the bills on third reading — all of which were on consent, meaning they would be approved as a group without discussion — Councilmember Jordan Huffman committed an unforgivable sin.
He pulled a bill off of the consent calendar.
This opened the door for a nearly hourlong discussion of a contract for website maintenance and development.
Huffman, a self-described nerd who works in the health care IT sector, bemoaned Metro’s website functionality and took issue with the administration’s inability to answer his questions.
The new mayoral administration was out of its depth and unprepared to answer a barrage of technical questions from councilmembers. To be fair, no councilmember had voiced concerns over the contract when it was heard in committee on second reading, which is when these discussions typically occur. Because of this, no one from the relevant departments was available to answer questions on Tuesday night at the full council meeting.
Adding to the confusion was a series of convoluted procedural moves that would have tested even the most seasoned parliamentarian. I wish I could describe it to y’all in words, but my grasp of the English language — let alone the language of Robert’s Rules of Order — isn’t firm enough to achieve such a feat.
Suffice it to say, it was a mess.
The council ultimately approved a two-meeting deferral with a re-referral back to the relevant committees in a nearly unanimous vote.
One Weird Trick to Save the Morris Building
If you aren’t living under a rock, you’ve likely heard of the controversy surrounding the city’s repeated failures to purchase the Morris Memorial Building.
After last week’s reporting that the building is now under contract with a private developer, calls for the city to purchase the building have only intensified.
Mayor Freddie O’Connell is well aware of these developments. He was literally just on the council that extensively discussed purchasing the Morris Building as recently as this summer. Unless he has short-term memory loss, he doesn’t need a reminder that this is an important landmark worth preserving.
Apparently this council found it so important to drive home this very obvious point that they said, “Screw the rules; who cares about public notice?”
Councilmember At-Large Zulfat Suara filed a nonbinding resolution so late that it didn’t even make it into the amendments package posted on Monday — that’s where late-filed legislation typically becomes public. As of Monday evening, the resolution wasn’t even listed on the publicly available agenda.
Those of you who follow my live tweets of the council meetings likely saw my extended meltdown over the council’s decision to throw out the rule book for this extra-late-filed resolution. To be clear, I am not quibbling with the content of the resolution. I think it’s perfectly reasonable for the council to put itself on the record, particularly on issues of public importance.
My quarrel is with the decision to abandon the entire concept of public notice.
I know I’m taking the “alt” out of “alt-weekly” here, but the council has rules for a reason. The public is entitled to appropriate notice of legislation. Without that notice, we’re unable to make our voices heard. I only found out about this resolution because I’m on a text thread with people who knew Suara was planning this. That is not how our system is supposed to work!
Councilmembers who file legislation after the filing deadline are required to appear before the Rules Committee and explain the nature of the emergency that requires the council to act on such short notice. Suara appeared before the Rules Committee and offered an explanation of the “emergency” that baffled me. She seemed to suggest that Mayor O’Connell would not act but for this resolution.
I’ve talked to several councilmembers, and I’ve listened back to the discussion on the floor Tuesday night several times. No one I’ve spoken to will go on the record with an explanation of why this resolution couldn’t wait two weeks, to allow for timely filing and proper public notice. Last-minute moves like this one — without a willingness to be transparent about why swift action is absolutely necessary — undermine public confidence in our system of government, and they set a bad precedent.
They also demonstrate that the council’s willingness to break its rules is at least partly dependent on the content of the legislation being considered. I can guarantee you that if someone late-filed a resolution urging the mayor to take a wrecking ball to the building, there would have been widespread objection among councilmembers to considering that resolution.
But because councilmembers agreed with the content of this resolution, the rules don’t matter. I’m not OK with that, and you shouldn’t be either.
If you like rules as much as I do, check out the newly adopted rules of procedure for the 2023-2027 council term. They make a great stocking stuffer, and they double as excellent kindling material!
