Yesterday I wrote about the Kyle City Council badly misinterpreting Robert’s Rules of Order and I realize now there is some clarification needed, particularly to distinguish between the terms "discuss" and "debate." Contrary to the council’s actions in adopting its new rules of procedures, there is nothing in Robert’s that pertains to the discussion of any issue. Robert’s concerns itself with debate only.
Let me give you an example. Item 11 on Tuesday night’s agenda read, in part, "Consider and possible action regarding approval of a contract between the City of Kyle, Texas and Aqua Operations, Inc., relating to the purchase of an existing wastewater treatment plant …" All it takes for "discussion" to commence on that item is for someone to read the agenda item into the record. In most councils I’ve covered that someone has always been the city secretary. The mayor (or acting chair, in the mayor’s absence) will say "next item" and the city secretary will read it into the record right from the agenda. But it’s OK if the mayor wants to handle that chore here. No problem.
Once it’s read into the record of the meeting, discussion can begin. And by discussion, I mean the council, as happened on this item Tuesday, could ask the city manager to come to the podium to talk about the issue. Council members could ask the manager questions about it. They could even summon other staff members to the podium to answer questions they may have. Council members are even free to discuss those questions and those answers among themselves. What they can’t do, however, is to begin discussions specifically on the merits of the issue, because Robert’s says, in effect, discussions of this sort should not be about ideas, or concepts, or theories, or even agenda items, because discussions of those sorts are more properly defined as "debate" and a debate must revolve around a specific action item. Therefore, debate or discussions on the pros and cons of an item can only commence after a council member makes a motion to take that specific action, whether it be pass it, reject it, table it, whatever.
In short, a motion is not required to discuss an item, but a motion is required to debate the item and that motion must be take a specific action.
One of the reasons this distinction is so important is because it focuses the debate. Many is the time I’ve seen a council member (not in Kyle, that I remember) begin pontificating to the point where he or she begins to travel a good distance from the motion that is on the table. Restricting "debate" to the specific motion allows the chair to gavel that pontificator out of order and request that he or she return to the matter being debated. During the "discussion" period, there is nothing to restrict a member from talking about anything he wants to; i.e., in the example I used above, the annual cost of chemicals needed to treat wastewater.
Now, like I said, if the council wants to waste time by deciding it doesn’t even want to open discussion on an item without a motion and a vote of the council, it has every right to do so. Just don’t try to justify it by saying it’s required by Robert’s Rules of Order, which, to repeat myself, deals only with "debate" on an issue, not "discussion" of that issue.
But while I’m on this general subject, there is something far more troubling that occurs each and every week at both City Council meetings and Planning & Zoning Commission hearings. And that’s the dictatorial process that’s used here to open and a close a public hearing. I’m not talking about the Citizen Comment period that precedes each of these sessions; I am specifically referring to the Public Hearings that accompany certain agenda items.
No one single person has the right or the authority to open or close a public hearing. But that’s what’s happening in Kyle and that is dictatorship, not democracy. Kyle City Council members and Planning & Zoning commissioners have allowed the mayor or the P&Z chair to decide when to open and when to close a public hearing. That flies in the face of everything the democratic form of government is supposed to represent.
A public hearing is opened simply by its appearance on the agenda. If an item has a public hearing attached to it, the chair may say "Let’s begin the public hearing" or "Let’s start taking public comments on this agenda item," but he shouldn’t be allowed to say "I’ll now open the public hearing" because the public hearing is already open.
And he certainly doesn’t have the right, on his own, to arbitrarily close the public hearing, and I can’t imagine any legislative body surrendering that right to just one person. A public hearing can only be closed by a motion to do so, a second and a vote to approve that motion by that legislative body. And the motion usually accompanies the motion to take specific action on that item; i.e. "I move to close the public hearing and approve the ordinance amending ...." The chair then repeats the motion, asks for second and once it is seconded, the chair asks if there is any discussion on the issue before a final vote is taken. If the motion is approved, then and only then is the public hearing closed.
This is vitally important not only for the sake of democracy but also for the sake of expediency. Let’s say, for example, the chair arbitrarily and dictatorially closes the public hearing on a specific rezoning request, but then one council member realizes he has another question to pose to the applicant. Once the public hearing is closed, all contact between members of the legislative body and the public must cease, so that question can’t legally be posed. However, if a final vote to close the public hearing accompanies the motion on the actual item, public discourse may continue.
There may also be times when it would be unwise to close the public hearing. One specific example would be if the legislative body wanted to hold off action on a particular item until a later date. So then the motion might state "I move we keep the public hearing open and delay action on this item until such and such a date." Once you have closed the public hearing, it is closed, forever.
Just something to consider instead of allowing certain individuals to run roughshod over the public’s right to speak.
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