Proper Procedure

So, I thought the Council meeting Wednesday night was going to be pretty boring based on the agenda. The agenda, however, pulled a fast one on me. Among the typical condemnations, contract approvals, and other routine matters, two items caused a bit of a ruckus. One was a councilman doing his duty by his constituents and the other a councilman avoiding that duty all together. Surprisingly, the first ended poorly and the second ended well.

Good Stuff with a Bad Ending: Around the beginning of this year, the Council assumed control of a little more than $800K used to fund community groups and other projects formerly at the Mayor’s discretion. The Council managed to burn through ľ of that money at a surprising rate. In May, several Councilmembers proposed projects to spend the remaining $200K. Many of these items were rejected by the Council through routine procedure. Normally, an item must be introduced prior to the meeting at which it is to be discussed in order for the public to have time to investigate the proposal and comment on it during a public hearing (i.e. the public’s time to weigh in on the issue). This requirement can be circumvented by suspending the rules, but the requirement is considered so important that a single objection can curtail the suspension. At last night’s meeting, several Councilmembers wanted to suspend the rules requiring public notice in order to vote on proposals that would spend the remainder of the discretionary fund. Councilman Joel Boe objected to this, believing the proposals should follow the normal procedures and the public should be notified of their consideration and allowed to comment. I whole heartedly agree with him. Suspending the rules should be limited to emergency situations only, not because Councilmembers don’t want to spend the time to go through the normal parliamentary process. That’s just poor government. Edit: After Councilman Boe left the meeting, the Council reintroduced the item, suspended the rules, and passed the proposals. So there you go, the Council just spent $200K of your money without any public notice. How’s that feel?

Bad Stuff with a Good Ending: As you may or may not know, the vast majority of East Baton Rouge Parish has an excellent fire protection rating, many areas receiving the highest fire protection rating available… unless you happen to live in Alsen. Alsen, a small community in North Baton Rouge, has had tremendous problems with their Fire Department and Fire Protection Board. A large number of fire fighters were implicated in payroll fraud in the past and the management of the department is so bad that the community’s fire rating is a ten. Unfortunately, a ten is the worst you can get; it’s almost like not having a fire department at all. The community’s outrageous property insurance rates reflect that. The people of the community are fed up with the Fire Protection Board and have sought redress from the Metro Council. Of note, they have stated several times that their Councilman, Bones Addison, has not been responsive to their needs. The desire of the people of Alsen was for the Council to replace the entirety of the Fire Protection Board at the last Metro Council meeting. Instead, the community members who showed up for the Council meeting were never allowed to state their case and Councilman Addison renewed three of the five positions through an unusual voting process (normally the Council votes on each candidate for each position, this vote was more of a slate). The people of Alsen were so upset they contacted Councilman Trae Welch who agreed to help them and placed an item on the agenda for last night’s Council meeting to discuss their problems. So what does Councilman Addison do when an item is on the agenda concerning his constituents who are unhappy with him? Skips the meeting, natch’! Addison, who is probably most well-known for tearing into just about anyone who appears at the lectern to speak before the council, couldn’t show up to take his lumps from his constituents. I’m sorry, but that’s absolutely unacceptable. Fortunately, the Council showed the appropriate amount of rage and passed a proposal requiring the Fire Protection Board to voluntarily appear before them at the next meeting and report on their past meetings and current efforts to improve Alsen’s fire protection rating. On a side note, this also revealed the incredibly poor oversight that the Metro Council has over the Boards and Committees of the Parish. The Council admitted that they don’t know if boards meet at all and that there is no minimum requirement to meet required by the Metro Council.

But I’ll save that particular tirade for next week…