March 26th Council Meeting
Don't forget that the Overland City Council meeting is typically aired at 10PM on Thursdays on Channel 18 (on Charter Cable). Unfortunately, this meeting does not make Overland look good, no matter how you slice it. Hopefully, we won't see this sort of conduct in the near future. You can read the articles about this meeting in the Suburban Journal here, the Post Dispatch here, and you can see Channel 4's coverage of it here.
Edited to add: Well, it appears Charter Cable dropped the ball again. Another meeting doesn't make it to the "Public Access" channel. Wasn't the intent of the regulations requiring that Cable TV providers make this service available created to ensure the "Public" had "Access" to information? Rumor had it that Charter Cable was none too happy when Overland authorized AT&T to provide their future Television and High Speed Internet access via their own wires to our area (unanimous vote of the Council). One of their complaints is rumored to be that Charter Cable didn't think it was fair that they had to provide meeting coverage and the like when AT&T did not. Well, considering how Charter doesn't appear to take this responsibility seriously and makes it extremely difficult to find any contact information for the personnel who run Channel 18, perhaps we will all be better off when we can make this service switch.
We were able to get our video online so our readers can watch it. You can see that video by clicking here. The video is 1 hour and 17 minutes long and please excuse the look of this video as Google uses it's own compression that reduces the quality.
Early on, the Mayor claimed that she "adjourned" the City Council Meeting of March 12th because the crowd had gotten unruly. In reality, the crowd was no more or less unruly than has become typical in the last year or so (clapping and booing here or there, an occasional outburst, etc). The crowd only got out of hand, to a degree, after the meeting "adjourned" and Councilman Knode, Councilman Sellers, Mayor Purzner and Councilman Ownesby all walked out.
The meeting of March 12th never officially adjourned. Besides the fact that the Council typically calls for full vote on adjournment (despite this regular practice, I'm not sure it's required), it is generally improper to make a new motion when another is on the table. Councilman May clearly made a motion, it was seconded, and required a vote of the Council. The Mayor claimed it was improper and refused to call the vote. However, the motion was legitimately worded and referred to city business so there was nothing improper about it. The Mayor claims because that motion references a legal case, the issue cannot be discussed in public. The Mayor does not understand the Sunshine Law. When the Sunshine Law references closed meetings, executive sessions and the like, it identifies what CAN be legally discussed in a closed meeting out of the public eye. It does not require that anything be limited to executive sessions and the like (as you can see for yourself here). There was no legitimate reason this motion could not be addressed.
All these issues came up again in the March 26th, 2007 meeting as they were left unfinished on March 12th when the Mayor and others walked out. After much discussion on the issue (discussion being a rather kind word for much of the meeting), rather than properly address the motion Councilman Knode lead the way as he walked out of the meeting, soon followed by Councilman Sellers, Councilman Owensby and shortly there after, Mayor Purzner. They did not allow the Council to complete the unfinished March 12th meeting and left before March 26th meeting was even called to order. So, as ridiculous as it sounds, the March 12th meeting still needs to be adjourned.
The reason Mayor Purzner as well as Councilmen Knode, Sellers and Owensby walked out is because they did not want to address the subject of Councilman May's motion, nor would they apparently consider adjourning to executive session to discuss it. The subject of the motion was settling the lawsuit brought by the 4 Overland Police officers whose pay raises and promotions where wrongly taken away by the Mayor. We already know the Mayor will not listen to the legal advice by the City Attorney (which has resulted in at least 3 lost lawsuits costing the City tens of thousands of dollars), but now it appears that the Mayor will not listen to the legal advice from the City's insurance company lawyers who have been telling her to settle this suit because the City's position is not defendable.
The City has already paid $23000.00 in legal fees on this case and is risking additional legal fees, the legal expenses of the four officers, and 3 times their back-pay (which they are entitled to in employment law should they win this suit). The officers apparently are willing to settle for their legal fees and their actual back-pay (not 3 times that amount) which is admirable of them. They are willing to settle a suit that the attorneys are telling the Mayor is unwinable and yet the Mayor insists on letting it continue. She went as far as to walk out of the March 12th Council meeting as well as the March 26th Council meeting to avoid discussing the issue (we covered this case when it all started both here and here).
Interestingly, one of the claims repeatedly made by Mayor on this case is that the City cannot authorize these pay raises because a budget has not been passed. However, everyone of these jobs were in the previous budget (which is what the city is currently working under as per State statute). The reason for the promotions is that a captain retired. As a result a Lieutenant was promoted to Capitan, a Sergeant was promoted to Lieutenant, a Corporal was promoted to Sergent, A Patrolman was promoted to Corporal, and a new patrolman was hired. The new patrolman was hired at a starting salary that was significantly lower than the experienced patrolman that was promoted. Also, the Capitan that retired was at a higher pay rate than the the promoted lieutenant starts at as a Capitan. As a result, these promotions actually cost the city less money than was budgeted in that previous budget.
This is not new behavior for the Mayor. As you can clearly read in the editorial from the Suburban Journal here Mayor Purzner refuses to believe she's been wrong on any legal challenge. She even goes as far as the question the ethics of several St. Louis County judges rather than admit she violated the law on numerous occasions. Violations that one does not need a legal degree or even college education to understand. The Mayor will not admit to her mistakes so how could we be expected to think she's learned from them? her mistakes already cost the City about $50,000.00 in legal bills in less than a year, and that's with a case still in court and another pending.
The Mayor does not stop there, as her April Localite Ad is more of the same:
(click the image to view a larger version)
In this ad, Mayor Purzner Claims:
Former Mayor Dody sold 17 acres of land to prevent Walmart and Lowes from coming to Overland. Of course this ad cites no reference material to research. One has to wonder, how did Former Mayor Dody sell land without a vote of the Council? More importantly, how did Mayor Dody sell land neither he nor the City of Overland ever owned? I am not a particular fan of the the Dody administration (though I also don't think they were the boogie men of Overland), but I am going to have to see some supporting facts before I can take a statement like this seriously.
She says this is why she walked out of meetings. Even if the above had been true it's not relevant to the Mayor's decision to walk out of the last two meetings rather than consider the legal advice to settle the lawsuit she effectively forced the police officers to file against the City. Why is it that the Mayor, and many of her supporters insist on living in the past rather than address the issues facing Overland today?
The Mayor claims she attempted to suspend the Chief of Police because he embroiled the city in "over a million dollars in unnecessary lawsuits" and goes on to claim that many were filed by police officers. The only lawsuits we've found did not cost nearly that much. There was one where 3 officers sued, and the City WON that lawsuit (though the legal defense cost $100,000.00 or so), and another where the Department was sued over the death of a man who had been in the City's custody but who actually died 5 days later in the custody of another agency in Montgomery County. In that suit the City's insurance company chose to settle for $90,000.00 because they believed the cost of defending the suit would be much higher than that.
$100,000.00 plus $90,000.00 is a far cry from "Millions of Dollars" Mayor Purzner.
The Mayor failed to mention that the St. Louis County Courts ruled that she had overstepped here authority by attempting to remove the Chief of Police without a vote of the City Council and later ruled that she overstepped her authority again by attempting to suspend the Chief of Police without the consent of the City Council. This requirement of consent of the City Council is clear both in Overland Ordinances as well as Chapter 77 of the Missouri Revised Statutes as we have cited here several times in the past.
We can't tell you what the Mayor is talking about when it comes to the $10,000 - $30,000 in escrow that new developers are "required" to put up, and no one seems to know what she was getting at there either. I'll give her that one since no one seems to know what this is about. If you know more on this issue (or any of the others) feel free to let us know by adding a comment to this article.
Finally the Mayor says if you want City Services restored like "Free" trash services you should vote for the listed Candidates. I am having a hard time keeping up with this. A lot of the campaign literature put out by the Mayor and her supporters when she was running for the office said they would bring back "free" trash service. Then, a few month's ago Mayor Purzner, Councilman Knode and others made fun of the phrase, saying that of course nothing is for free and tried to blame the use of the term on their opponents on the City Council. They started calling it "city paid" trash service after that (an issue we covered at length here). That is until now as it seems the Mayor is back to calling it "free" trash again. I think I am going to have to have score cards made to be able to keep up.
When it comes to the trash issue, there is one important question that Mayor Purzner, Councilman Knode, Councilman Sellers and Councilman Owensby have consistently refused to answer. How is it possible that the $616,000.00 in their budget proposal for "City Paid" trash service can pay for the $1,200,000.00+ in services the residents are currently paying? The Mayor, Councilman Knode and others have consistently claimed that they have no bids or proposals from any trash companies, yet they want us to believe that somehow the service will now cost 1/2 as much as it currently does. You would think that if Mayor Purzner, Councilman Knode and others had managed to find a way to get trash service for about half the current cost they would be shouting about this success from every rooftop. Their silence on this issue speaks volumes in my opinion. How could anyone expect the residents to support a service when it appears to be underfunded and they offer no explanation accept to belittle the question by suggesting we care "what color the truck is"?
Edited to add: Well, it appears Charter Cable dropped the ball again. Another meeting doesn't make it to the "Public Access" channel. Wasn't the intent of the regulations requiring that Cable TV providers make this service available created to ensure the "Public" had "Access" to information? Rumor had it that Charter Cable was none too happy when Overland authorized AT&T to provide their future Television and High Speed Internet access via their own wires to our area (unanimous vote of the Council). One of their complaints is rumored to be that Charter Cable didn't think it was fair that they had to provide meeting coverage and the like when AT&T did not. Well, considering how Charter doesn't appear to take this responsibility seriously and makes it extremely difficult to find any contact information for the personnel who run Channel 18, perhaps we will all be better off when we can make this service switch.
We were able to get our video online so our readers can watch it. You can see that video by clicking here. The video is 1 hour and 17 minutes long and please excuse the look of this video as Google uses it's own compression that reduces the quality.
Early on, the Mayor claimed that she "adjourned" the City Council Meeting of March 12th because the crowd had gotten unruly. In reality, the crowd was no more or less unruly than has become typical in the last year or so (clapping and booing here or there, an occasional outburst, etc). The crowd only got out of hand, to a degree, after the meeting "adjourned" and Councilman Knode, Councilman Sellers, Mayor Purzner and Councilman Ownesby all walked out.
The meeting of March 12th never officially adjourned. Besides the fact that the Council typically calls for full vote on adjournment (despite this regular practice, I'm not sure it's required), it is generally improper to make a new motion when another is on the table. Councilman May clearly made a motion, it was seconded, and required a vote of the Council. The Mayor claimed it was improper and refused to call the vote. However, the motion was legitimately worded and referred to city business so there was nothing improper about it. The Mayor claims because that motion references a legal case, the issue cannot be discussed in public. The Mayor does not understand the Sunshine Law. When the Sunshine Law references closed meetings, executive sessions and the like, it identifies what CAN be legally discussed in a closed meeting out of the public eye. It does not require that anything be limited to executive sessions and the like (as you can see for yourself here). There was no legitimate reason this motion could not be addressed.
All these issues came up again in the March 26th, 2007 meeting as they were left unfinished on March 12th when the Mayor and others walked out. After much discussion on the issue (discussion being a rather kind word for much of the meeting), rather than properly address the motion Councilman Knode lead the way as he walked out of the meeting, soon followed by Councilman Sellers, Councilman Owensby and shortly there after, Mayor Purzner. They did not allow the Council to complete the unfinished March 12th meeting and left before March 26th meeting was even called to order. So, as ridiculous as it sounds, the March 12th meeting still needs to be adjourned.
The reason Mayor Purzner as well as Councilmen Knode, Sellers and Owensby walked out is because they did not want to address the subject of Councilman May's motion, nor would they apparently consider adjourning to executive session to discuss it. The subject of the motion was settling the lawsuit brought by the 4 Overland Police officers whose pay raises and promotions where wrongly taken away by the Mayor. We already know the Mayor will not listen to the legal advice by the City Attorney (which has resulted in at least 3 lost lawsuits costing the City tens of thousands of dollars), but now it appears that the Mayor will not listen to the legal advice from the City's insurance company lawyers who have been telling her to settle this suit because the City's position is not defendable.
The City has already paid $23000.00 in legal fees on this case and is risking additional legal fees, the legal expenses of the four officers, and 3 times their back-pay (which they are entitled to in employment law should they win this suit). The officers apparently are willing to settle for their legal fees and their actual back-pay (not 3 times that amount) which is admirable of them. They are willing to settle a suit that the attorneys are telling the Mayor is unwinable and yet the Mayor insists on letting it continue. She went as far as to walk out of the March 12th Council meeting as well as the March 26th Council meeting to avoid discussing the issue (we covered this case when it all started both here and here).
Interestingly, one of the claims repeatedly made by Mayor on this case is that the City cannot authorize these pay raises because a budget has not been passed. However, everyone of these jobs were in the previous budget (which is what the city is currently working under as per State statute). The reason for the promotions is that a captain retired. As a result a Lieutenant was promoted to Capitan, a Sergeant was promoted to Lieutenant, a Corporal was promoted to Sergent, A Patrolman was promoted to Corporal, and a new patrolman was hired. The new patrolman was hired at a starting salary that was significantly lower than the experienced patrolman that was promoted. Also, the Capitan that retired was at a higher pay rate than the the promoted lieutenant starts at as a Capitan. As a result, these promotions actually cost the city less money than was budgeted in that previous budget.
This is not new behavior for the Mayor. As you can clearly read in the editorial from the Suburban Journal here Mayor Purzner refuses to believe she's been wrong on any legal challenge. She even goes as far as the question the ethics of several St. Louis County judges rather than admit she violated the law on numerous occasions. Violations that one does not need a legal degree or even college education to understand. The Mayor will not admit to her mistakes so how could we be expected to think she's learned from them? her mistakes already cost the City about $50,000.00 in legal bills in less than a year, and that's with a case still in court and another pending.
The Mayor does not stop there, as her April Localite Ad is more of the same:
(click the image to view a larger version)In this ad, Mayor Purzner Claims:
Former Mayor Dody sold 17 acres of land to prevent Walmart and Lowes from coming to Overland. Of course this ad cites no reference material to research. One has to wonder, how did Former Mayor Dody sell land without a vote of the Council? More importantly, how did Mayor Dody sell land neither he nor the City of Overland ever owned? I am not a particular fan of the the Dody administration (though I also don't think they were the boogie men of Overland), but I am going to have to see some supporting facts before I can take a statement like this seriously.
She says this is why she walked out of meetings. Even if the above had been true it's not relevant to the Mayor's decision to walk out of the last two meetings rather than consider the legal advice to settle the lawsuit she effectively forced the police officers to file against the City. Why is it that the Mayor, and many of her supporters insist on living in the past rather than address the issues facing Overland today?
The Mayor claims she attempted to suspend the Chief of Police because he embroiled the city in "over a million dollars in unnecessary lawsuits" and goes on to claim that many were filed by police officers. The only lawsuits we've found did not cost nearly that much. There was one where 3 officers sued, and the City WON that lawsuit (though the legal defense cost $100,000.00 or so), and another where the Department was sued over the death of a man who had been in the City's custody but who actually died 5 days later in the custody of another agency in Montgomery County. In that suit the City's insurance company chose to settle for $90,000.00 because they believed the cost of defending the suit would be much higher than that.
$100,000.00 plus $90,000.00 is a far cry from "Millions of Dollars" Mayor Purzner.
The Mayor failed to mention that the St. Louis County Courts ruled that she had overstepped here authority by attempting to remove the Chief of Police without a vote of the City Council and later ruled that she overstepped her authority again by attempting to suspend the Chief of Police without the consent of the City Council. This requirement of consent of the City Council is clear both in Overland Ordinances as well as Chapter 77 of the Missouri Revised Statutes as we have cited here several times in the past.
We can't tell you what the Mayor is talking about when it comes to the $10,000 - $30,000 in escrow that new developers are "required" to put up, and no one seems to know what she was getting at there either. I'll give her that one since no one seems to know what this is about. If you know more on this issue (or any of the others) feel free to let us know by adding a comment to this article.
Finally the Mayor says if you want City Services restored like "Free" trash services you should vote for the listed Candidates. I am having a hard time keeping up with this. A lot of the campaign literature put out by the Mayor and her supporters when she was running for the office said they would bring back "free" trash service. Then, a few month's ago Mayor Purzner, Councilman Knode and others made fun of the phrase, saying that of course nothing is for free and tried to blame the use of the term on their opponents on the City Council. They started calling it "city paid" trash service after that (an issue we covered at length here). That is until now as it seems the Mayor is back to calling it "free" trash again. I think I am going to have to have score cards made to be able to keep up.
When it comes to the trash issue, there is one important question that Mayor Purzner, Councilman Knode, Councilman Sellers and Councilman Owensby have consistently refused to answer. How is it possible that the $616,000.00 in their budget proposal for "City Paid" trash service can pay for the $1,200,000.00+ in services the residents are currently paying? The Mayor, Councilman Knode and others have consistently claimed that they have no bids or proposals from any trash companies, yet they want us to believe that somehow the service will now cost 1/2 as much as it currently does. You would think that if Mayor Purzner, Councilman Knode and others had managed to find a way to get trash service for about half the current cost they would be shouting about this success from every rooftop. Their silence on this issue speaks volumes in my opinion. How could anyone expect the residents to support a service when it appears to be underfunded and they offer no explanation accept to belittle the question by suggesting we care "what color the truck is"?
posted by Overland Sailor @ 6:10 PM 
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You are my hero! I stayed up last night, had the popcorn ready and no show on channel 18. I am so happy that you have not only provided video but a detailed report on what happened at the meeting.
Great job!!!
Speaking directly to the question of a motion to adjourn: an unqualified motion to adjourn is in order when another (main) motion is pending because an unqualified motion to adjourn is privileged. Anything left incomplete would be considered at the next meeting under "unfinished business," picking up right where it left off.
The rule against a motion being considered while another is pending refers only to a second main motion while the first main motion pending. Any number of other motions, called secondary, privileged, and incidental, are in order according to the rules of preference. For example, when a main motion is pending, motions to adjourn or recess, amend the main motion, lay it on the table or send it to committee, and close the discussion and immediately vote are all in order
Suzy, thanks for the kind words and I'm glad I could give you and others a chance to see it. BTW I sent you an email awhile ago and was wondering if you got it (I have to confess I was not sure I had the right email address).
What I found most interesting was that after Councilman Knode and Mayor Purzner have spent the last week or so on their web site's talking about how some video of events are edited while there's is not. Yet, now on Councilman Knode's website there is a partial, obviously edited (unless you think all that text appeared in the air miraculously :-) ), video of a portion of the meeting that you can see for yourself here. I guess this is just another example of a double standard.
nicastpj, Thank you for that information! Due to a family event ( no worries folks it is a good event :-) ), I've not yet found the time to research this issue in my own Robert's Rules. I would really appreciate it if you could direct us to that section of RRoO that covers this so we can review it and put this particular procedural issue to bed.
Also, I believe (but have not had a chance to research) that a motion to adjourn does not require a vote of the Council. However, since the city regularly calls for that vote at meetings I wonder if there was a specific reason for this. Any thoughts on this?
Thanks again for the information!
I'm always happy to field questions on RROO. A motion to adjourn is covered in section 21 of the current (10th) edition of Robert's Rules of Order, Newly Revised (RONR,) beginning on p. 225. In answer to your three questions:
1. "The privileged motion to Adjourn takes precedence over all motions expect for the privileged motion to Fix the Time to Which to Adjourn" (p. 227).
2. "When the adjournment closes the session in an assembly having its next regular meeting within a quarterly time interval.... if a question was pending at the time of adjournment, it is taken up as the first item under unfinished business..." (p. 228-9.)
3. "When it appears that there is no further business in a meeting of an ordinary local society that normally goes through a complete order of business at each regular meeting, the chair, instead of waiting or calling for a motion to adjourn, can ask, 'Is there any further business?" If there is no response, the chair can then say, 'Since there is no further business, the meeting is adjourned'" (p. 233).
Thank you very much!
But now you went and did it. You said you are "always happy" to field Roberts Rules of Order questions.
Well, if you would be so kind as to click my name at the top of this post you will find a link to send an email to me.
If you contact me via email I bet I can send you a ton of RROO questions. Enough to move you rapidly from happy to ecstatic! :-)
Seriously, I would love the opportunity to discuss RROO via email if you would be so kind as to send me a note.
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