The Common Council will meet on Tuesday and the County Board will meet on Thursday. They both have plans to pass ordinances to have Madison and Dane County government meetings by phone.
CITY COUNCIL
COUNCIL MEET BY PHONE OR VIA INTERNET
This is item number 10 on the Council agenda for Tuesday:
The ordinance is sponsored by Council President Shiva Bidar, Keith Fuman and Mayor Satya Rhodes Conway. The ordinance is amended as follows – bold language is new.
1. Subsection (1) of Section 2.15 entitled “Presence Required at Meetings; Electronic Communications” of the Madison General Ordinances is amended to read as follows:
“(1)(a) No member shall be allowed to vote by proxy,. nor shall m
(b) Meetings shall not be conducted telephonically or electronically unless a special or emergency meeting is held., or as detailed in (c).
(c) Notwithstanding (b), when there is an officially declared city, county state or federal emergency and necessary members of the Council are unable to attend a meeting in person; or when the Director of Public Health Madison and Dane County determines it is reasonable and necessary for the prevention or suppression of disease, regularly scheduled meetings may be held telephonically or via the internet. The Mayor and the Common Council President shall determine if a regularly scheduled meeting is to be held telephonically or via the internet.
(d) If a meeting is conducted telephonically or via the internet, the meeting notice shall so state. The Mayor shall direct appropriate staff to ensure that all technical preparations are made for such a meeting, including ensuring said meeting is compliant with the open meetings laws, Wis. Stats. §§ 19.81-19.98.”
The fiscal note says: Costs associated with facilitating meetings electronically will funded through the Information Technology budget. At this time implementation costs are unknown and may be addressed with a future budget appropriation.
COMMITTEE MEETINGS CANCELLED IN AN EMERGENCY
This is item number 11 on the Council agenda for Tuesday:
The ordinance is sponsored by Council President Shiva Bidar, Keith Fuman and Mayor Satya Rhodes Conway. The ordinance is amended as follows – bold language is new.
1. Subdivision (c) of Subsection (10) entitled “Meetings Not To Be Held” of Section 33.01 entitled “Boards, Commissions, And Committees Procedures” of the Madison General Ordinances is created to read as follows:
“(c) Emergency Situation. No Sub-unit shall hold a meeting whenever there has been an officially declared city, county, state or federal emergency or when the Director of Public Health Madison and Dane County has determined it is reasonable and necessary for the prevention or suppression of disease to limit public gatherings, unless the Mayor and Common Council President determine the meeting is necessary to provide essential functions or support to the operations of the City.”
The fiscal note says: No fiscal impact.
COUNTY ORDINANCE
This is item I. on the County Board Agenda for Thursday.
It is sponsored by County Board Chair Analiese Eicher and will require a 2/3 vote because they are only allowed to amend this ordinance with a majority vote on the first meeting after the Supervisors are elected.
The language here only applies to committee members, not the county board, which is currently not restricted:
Section 7.22(14) is rescinded:
(14) Committee members may participate in a meeting via telephone or other electronic media but cannot be counted for a quorum or vote.
There is no fiscal note included here.
OPINION – COUNTY VS CITY APPROACH
Unintended Consequences in City Approach in restricting meetings
A plain reading of this would indicate that when County Executive and Governor declared states of emergency in the fall of 2018 for flooding, city committees would not be able to meet unless they got permission from the Mayor and Council President.
Also, think about last July when the MG&E Substation knocked out power to many residents. While that happened and roads were reopened and evacuation order done by 9am, the state of emergency wasn’t called till the afternoon.
This seems like it could create complications in the future – unintended consequences – if you may. For example, if the emergency is for areas in Dane County outside of Madison, why should Madison committees not meet if they cannot get in touch with the Mayor and Council President? And if the state of emergency is not called until after the immediate emergency is handled it seems meetings could continue as planned.
Seems like the second half of the language addresses the immediate need and the first half of the language is overly broad.
Points to the County
The county’s approach is much friendlier to allowing local governments to continue operating. The city is restrictive and bans meetings, which as I said above, could have unintended consequences in future. I can imagine developers, liquor license holders and other businesses could be impacted by this. And important resolutions by the Water Utility, Community Development Authority (public housing) and other entities could be delayed causing trouble.
City should take additional steps
I think the city should move in the opposite direction. The mayor should rescind the portion of APM 3-2 that says the following:
Appearances by Telephone – Whenever a City body anticipates that a member will appear by telephone/teleconference or that a person shall be testifying or appearing by telephone/teleconference, staff shall ensure that the meeting notice/agenda specifically and conspicuously identifies which persons or members shall be appearing by such means. A member so participating shall count towards the official quorum of the body. Staff shall be responsible for coordinating the use of appropriate equipment so that the attending public can readily observe such person’s participation in the meeting. No person shall be allowed to participate in any meeting where the meeting notice failed to state the person would appear by telephone/teleconference means or where such equipment is unavailable or unusable at the time of the meeting.
In the very least, this should be lifted when there is an emergency declared. In this case, leaving the language broad makes sense.
An APM is an Administrative Procedure Memorandum that is enacted by the Mayor. She has the power to amend this language without the action of the Common Council, and she should.
Points!
Points go to the new County Board Chair Analiese Eicher once again. Mayor Satya, not so much.
And, as you know, there are many other things I think they could do quickly to increase access to local government meetings, and there are probably things they could do in this list of suggestions that would make it easier for the public to participate too.
