One of the Mayor’s big complaints about me . . . er, “that alder that had 44 [sic] of the 120 [sic] amendments”, during this last budget is that I asked for roll call votes, “even when it was 18 – 2”. Just in case it isn’t obvious why, let me explain why one might do that:
- Sometimes about half the council votes audibly and its hard to know how/if they voted.
- Sometimes, it sounds like one thing on a voice vote and then when you do the roll call it turns out completely different. (At the budget meeting there was one vote where Jed leaned over and said, “wow, that turned out completely different”)
- Sometimes someone votes one way when it is a voice vote and then if it is a roll call they change their vote due to . . . well, for whatever reason.
- Many of the votes were close (7-13, 8 – 12, 9 – 11, 10-10, 11-9, 8-12, 13-7) and if there is no roll call, the chair (Mayor) gets to decide what s/he thinks he heard.
- Accountability and having a clear record.
To me, these are good reasons to have a roll call vote.
One might wonder why I bring this up. Two reasons. First, in listening to Sly yesterday, the mayor was still whining about this, so I thought I should respond since he can’t see to let it go. Second, a certain alder on the east side refuses to answer questions about why he voted on a particular item in a particular way. Without the role call vote, his flip-flopping would not have been noticed.
Additionally, at some point, it would be really nice to get the council chambers upgraded with the technology you see smaller towns and cities all over Wisconsin using that allow voting from your seat without the clerk calling the roll. That wasn’t in this year’s budget even though we’ve been talking about it for 7 (or more) years.
And, for the record, I counted one roll call vote that was 18-2, a few 16/4 and 15/5 votes, but the rest were closer. Take a look for yourself (Cap, Op 1, Op 2).
