Nevermind, You’re still on that committee! For Now.

So annoying when the council members don’t do their jobs and ask questions – in advance. Luckily, they are fixing this one and the people I blogged about will NOT be kicked off the committee – yet! Here’s two explanations.

First, from Lauren Cnare:

From: Cnare, Lauren
Sent: Friday, February 10, 2012 8:55 AM
To: ALL ALDERS; Crawley, Katie; Monks, Anne; Clerk
Subject: Committee Members and Statements of Interest

Good morning, all:
Yesterday it came to the attention of several alders that they have constituents whose names appeared at last Council meeting on the “did not file” list, but indeed, they had! (Or, thought they had but a glitch may have occurred in some way that prevented actual filing and recording.) However, we passed the list.

We discussed this with the Mayor and staff yesterday, and propose this remedy:
Committees should continue to meet and function with the members, whether or not their names were on the list.
Someone – we have a volunteer – will move reconsideration of the passage at the next CC meeting.
He will have a substitute list that has been re-examined and verified to offer as a substitute.
We will pass the substitute.

This “action” will be on the agenda for the next meeting so that we can move it that night, on the floor.

Everyone is working diligently to prevent this from happening in the future.

Thanks to committee members and alders for identifying this; and thanks to alders for working to solve it.
LC

Now, the City Attorney:

From: May, Michael
Sent: Friday, February 10, 2012 12:52 PM
To: ALL ALDERS; Soglin, Paul
Cc: Witzel-Behl, Maribeth; Christianson, Eric; D’Costa, Laila; Monks, Anne; Crawley, Katie; Brist, Steven
Subject: Statement of Interests and Revocation of Committee Appointments

NOTE: THIS IS INTENDED TO BE A ONE-WAY ELECTRONIC MEMORANDUM. DO NOT REPLY. This is an electronic memo, and is not to institute a discussion of any of the matters in the memo. Do not reply or reply to all. Any response should be by new email to the sender only. Do not forward this email.

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Mayor Soglin and Alders:

I understand there has been some concern over the adoption, at the meeting last Tuesday, of the report on revocation of committee members who have failed to file their statement of interests, Legistar No. 25065. Apparently, some members whose names appeared on the list actually had filed, and others thought they had filed electronically but the filing was not received by the Clerk’s office.

For the reasons I explain in this message, we are advising that the action by the Council is legally ineffective to constitute revocation of those offices and that, instead, the matter will have to be taken up again at the meeting on February 28 to be effective. Essentially, we jumped the gun.

The ordinance provides in sec. 3.35(9)(i)3, MGO, that the “Common Council shall, at the second meeting after receipt of the Clerk’s notice, revoke the appointment of any such member who has not filed the required disclosure statement by the time of such Council meeting.” (Emphasis added).

We were asked this year by the Clerk’s office what the “notice” was that started the clock counting, and advised that it was the notice to committee members who had failed to file, which the Clerk sends in early January. That would have made the revocation allowable on February 7. However, we now discover that we have in the past interpreted “notice” to mean the notice to the Council when the Clerk first files the Report for revocation. For example, in 2010, the Clerk’s Report was filed on January 19 and not acted upon until February 23 (see Legistar Item 17121). This is two meetings after notice to the Council by the initial filing of the Report, not two meetings after notice to office holders. (There apparently was no Report in 2011).

In order to provide consistency in interpreting the ordinance, we conclude that the Council did not have the authority to act on the revocations until the second meeting after the filing of the Clerk’s Report, or the meeting of February 28, 2012. We will be certain this is back on the agenda at that meeting for action by the Council, probably under a Motion for Reconsideration.

We also will be including language in the annual City Attorney Revisor’s Ordinance to clarify that it is the Clerk’s Report to the Council, not the earlier notice to office holders, that starts the clock ticking for the “second meeting” after the report.

Thank you for your patience.
Michael P. May

It would have been so much simpler if someone had just asked about this at the meeting. I sure as hell know I would have if I was on the council and I had just been handed this list – even if they find that annoying. It’s called doing your job. They shouldn’t need a job description for that! Or a city attorney to help you out of this jam with legal machinations.