Pittsfield Council Recrafting Rules Of Order
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Council President Peter Marchetti presented a number of changes he'd like to see.
Currently, the City Council's rules of order say for 15 minutes at the start of the special meeting there will be an open microphone for residents to voice their opinions on anything from tax rates to conspiracy theories.
The City Council's Ordinance and Rules subcommittee wants to increase public input by expanding sessions to all subcommittee meetings but as the members wove through the process language changes upon language changes piled up.
"I don't think it would be a bad idea to include special language for inauguration day," Councilor at Large Peter White said in a discussion about restricting open microphone during the ceremony while Councilor Melissa Mazzeo said she thinks most people understand that meeting is "extra special" and isn't the time to address the council.
Nonetheless, the subcommittee is asking for a language change to make sure that is very clear as they re-craft the language to include the subcommittees that hadn't had open microphone periods prior, a change asked for by Ward 3 Councilor Nicholas Caccamo.
The language will allow a public comment period for items on the agenda for the subcommittees or special City Council meetings and on any topic for the regular council meetings.
But it isn't the only change in that section councilors are requesting to change. The subcommittee debated the time allocated for the period. The rules state that council meetings have 15 minutes of public comment. If here are 30 people looking to speak, they each have 30 seconds, a timeframe White feels is too short. On the other hand, Mazzeo said when there have been few speakers some residents have pressed for added time to fill the entire period.
"One way or the other you are either falling short or going over," Mazzeo said.
The council typically restricts comment to three minutes but the rules don't say that. Now, the subcommittee says it wants to give the president or chairman of the committee the authority to choose how long each resident gets at each meeting and in turn that will determine how long the comment period lasts. Ward 6 Councilor John Krol, however, opposed the change because the language set a specific time frame before, urging residents to be concise.
"This encourages people to understand that there is a time frame," Krol said.
How the comment period of meetings go is just one of the dozen or so rules the subcommittee wants to tweak. It spent two hours pouring over language and tumbling down rabbit holes and digging into the weeds to find order.
Currently when the City Council wants to address an item before the agenda has it penned in, the council moves it provided there are no objections. However, the rules say the council needs a vote to do so.
"We don't take a vote to take an item out of order," Krol said of the current practice.
Krol wants the language to read that an item could be taken out of order if no councilor objects or by a majority vote, which shores up the language legally.
"My purpose for putting in this petition is so everything is crystal clear," said Council President Peter Marchetti, who proposed a number of changes to the rules after taking over the presidency.
What really triggered the new review of the rules was the debate over the vice presidency. The Ordinance and Rules Committee was split 3-2 on how to choose a vice president.
A the end of the year, former Councilor Jonathan Lothrop put in a petition to change the vice president position from one appointed by the president to one elected by the council. The change triggered heated debate and ultimately ended with Mazzeo invoking the rarely used charter objection.
That objection halted a vote on the issue and that December meeting was the last for the council. Three councilors then petitioned Mazzeo to hold a special meeting to vote on the issue before inauguration day. Ultimately the outgoing and incoming city clerks proposed a hybrid model that allows the president to nominate a candidate, who then has to be confirmed by the council.
"To me, it is not an election it is an appointment, " Marchetti said of that process. "There were two candidates vying for position of vice president and one of them was shut out because of the council rules."
Caccamo, however, said the compromised solution works for him. If the person the elected president nominates can't get six votes then the president would need to nominate somebody else, he said.
"That really brought both sides together on the matter," he said, calling it a plan that reaches "across the aisle."
Mazzeo continues to support the president being allow to pick a vice president. She says the president should have someone he or she can work with. The former council president said there has never been an issue with appointing the position in the past.
"In my opinion, a council vice president has been chosen for political reasons and not as one who can handle the job," Marchetti said.
Newly elected Ward 5 Councilor Donna Todd Rivers said the councilors are "all here to work together for the common good" so having some with a different opinion in the vice president seat should not be a disruption.
"I would be happy if there were differences in style or opinion with the president," Rivers said.
Those are just a few things the subcommittee discussed Monday night. Next the city solicitor will craft language based on the suggestions and bring it back to the subcommittee. Ultimately, the subcommittee looks to spend a few months before sending newly crafted rules to the full council, who will then be asked to debate and decided whether or not to adopt the subcommittee's new rules.
Tags: council rules, ordinance & rules ,
