Read this Legal Announcement from today’s local skewspaper. Pay particular attention to the highlighted portion of the Announcement. Now, compare the wording of that Legal Announcement with the wording of this particular item in the online agenda for the March 5 Council meeting. If that agenda item is for the Legal Announcement item, and it’s certainly not clear that it is, then it sounds to me as if the decision to approve the Supplemental Ordinance has already been made!
If you had only read the agenda item and had not read the Legal Announcement, would you associate the agenda item with the content of the Legal Announcement? I don’t know if they are associated or not. If they are not associated, then the $12,149,284 item from the Legal Announcement is not even on the Tuesday meeting agenda!
ADDENDUM AT 2:19 p.m. on Friday, March 1, 2013: The City has just posted online this Agenda Addendum and this Council Packet Addendum addressing the deficiencies noted in my earlier post.
Thank you Bill. If it wasn’t so pathetic it would be laughable. I can’t use the terms politely to describe the Cd’A city hall departments heads.
Comment by Ancientemplar — March 1, 2013 @ 2:37 pm
Ancientemplar,
It was an OpenCdA reader who contacted me this morning to point out the Legal Announcement and to also point out that its wording effectively declared how the Council would vote on Tuesday night. Then Councilmen Gookin and Adams began following up to ensure they had the information they needed to prepare to deliberate and decide in the City’s best interest.
Comment by Bill — March 1, 2013 @ 4:52 pm
Bill, wouldn’t you have thought that the city would have called all the council members directly and informed them that there was an addendum to the agenda? I would think that it would be common courtesy, rather than having Gookin and Adams receiving a heads up here. I guess they weren’t included in prior discussions re:$12,149,284 decision.
Comment by Ancientemplar — March 2, 2013 @ 7:55 am
Ancientemplar,
I don’t understand how the Legal Announcement could have been worded the way it was and submitted to the skewspaper in time for publication on Friday without the City Clerk including a correct agenda and staff documents in the council members’ packets.
Clearly the revised agenda and packet addenda were done as a result of calls and emails from Councilmen Adams and Gookin. Yes, the City Clerk should have personally and timely notified all the council members, the Mayor, and any staff who may be expected to present on this topic on Tuesday. Maybe she did.
I wonder what would have happened at Tuesday’s council meeting if the omission of the statutorily required agenda item had not been caught? The revised Idaho Open Meeting Law now allows agenda items to be added during the meeting, but only after passing a motion that states the reason for the amendment and states the good faith reason the agenda item was not included in the original agenda posting. Somehow I don’t consider administrative incompetence to be a sufficient “good faith reason” for it. And assuming that all the council members are diligent in wanting to be fully prepared to deliberate and vote on important items like this, I can’t imagine they would vote to pass such a coverup motion. (Actually, I can imagine it. The vote would have probably been 4 ayes, 2 nays.)
Comment by Bill — March 2, 2013 @ 8:18 am
My thoughts exactly Bill….”4/2 the ayes have it.”
Comment by Ancientemplar — March 2, 2013 @ 11:44 am