Thursday, February 23, 2012
To: County Council
Fm: Shane Roth
Re: proposed Order of Business modification
Members of Council,
I sincerely hope I can persuade you to vote against any modification of the Order of Business of Whatcom County Council's regular meetings.
The idea to move the Open Session portion of regular Council meetings to a later time in the meeting is an idea I strenuously oppose as a citizen who regularly attends these meetings.
The importance of being afforded the opportunity to present ideas to you before you conduct business is difficult to overstate.
A decision to make those citizens who are interested in attending, and participating in, these regular meetings wait until after business is transacted is an idea that I can't support.
This is a peculiar item of business for the County Council to be taking up, particularly in light of the very serious business before the Council as of this writing. I find the arguments supporting this change to be unpersuasive, and the action itself to be unnecessary.
I would be interested to know what turn of events prompted the decision to consider such a change. I am aware of no commentary from the public that has expressed any dissatisfaction with the timing of Open Session at County Council meetings.
At a recent Council meeting, there was a comment made by Ms. Kershner, as the new Chair of the Council, alluding to the 20 minute time limit that attaches to Open Session.
When the County Council dramatically changed its composition in January 2010, Sam Crawford began his stint as the Chair of the Council. In the two years he served as Chair, he made no attempt to modify the order of business, or to enforce the 20 minute time limit on Open Session. This suggests that there is non-partisan and wide support for the established custom of not enforcing the 20 minute time limit on Open Session, as well as support for keeping Open Session right where it is in the current Order of Business. I would like that custom to continue.
I can appreciate that Ms. Kershner, like all those serving as Chair before her, is entitled to bring her own style to how she serves as the presiding officer of the Council. Nonetheless, there is the matter of a long standing and well established custom in place to which all previous Chairs have deferred.
Since serving as the Chair, Ms. Kershner has taken conspicuous and repeated action regarding Open Session. More so than any Chair I have seen serve in my brief time attending Council meetings.
At a recent meeting I saw Open Session broken into two segments and persons who were attending for the express purpose of speaking in Open Session (including many citizens who brought their children with them... children who were remarkably well behaved, mind you) were made to wait for a second segment of Open Session that happened late into the meeting. This is the first time I have personally seen Open Session so directly modified by the Council. The motion to modify Open Session was made by the Chair.
I remind the Council to look at WCC 2.02.190.
The rules and procedures set forth in this chapter may be suspended in specific instances by an affirmative roll-call vote by two-thirds of the entire council.
You have all of the authority you need to modify your Order of Business at any specific meeting without passing an ordinance. When you modified your Order of Business at the recent meeting to which I refer, I don't recall if you passed the motion with a two thirds vote, but I clearly recall that you did not put the motion to a roll call vote. I would appreciate it if you would adhere to your own rules regarding their proper suspension until such a time as you change your rules by ordinance.
I remind the Council further that the Chair has no special authority to take any action regarding the passage of ordinances. This change in the order of business is a matter of statutory law and would require the passage of an ordinance to happen. For this change to take place, four members of the Council must vote for it.
I'm asking you to vote against any ordinance that moves Open Session to a later portion of a regular Council meeting.
Respectfully,
Shane Roth
Bellingham, Washington
I vehemently support you in this. I am, most often, not able to stay through the entire meeting, but I sometimes have important things to say. If part of being a council necessitates doing what is in the best interests of the citizens who elected them to oversee their community, does it not follow that said council would make necessary allowances?
ReplyDeleteOops...I'm preachin' to the choir.
One part of the reason that Open Session has become so long is that the the Council often decides not to hold public hearings on matters of great public concern. The public shows up anyway to speak its mind, during the Open Session. I don't think that the solution is to move the Open Session. The solution is to hold more public hearings.
ReplyDeleteFor example -- why on earth was there no scheduled hearing for the South Fork mining issue? The Council held its hearing in July 2011. It isn't realistic to expect the Council to remember everything for that length of time. It isn't realistic to expect that there won't be more people, and maybe different concerns.