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Council meeting comes to abrupt close
9/3/2008 5:04:10 PM
By Josh Johnson
Splash Staff Writer
LIBERTY LAKE - On a night when it took 15 minutes to approve the agenda, the Liberty Lake City Council suddenly adjourned its Tuesday meeting mid-discussion in little more than 15 seconds.
An ordinance on the agenda to amend the 2008 budget to create a city administrator position in Liberty Lake, among other things, met resistance in the first moments of the meeting when City Councilman Patrick Jenkins moved to remove it from the agenda altogether, a motion that failed 4-3 with council members Susan Schuler and Odin Langford joining Jenkins.
Jenkins argued the ordinance (165B) was identical to one (165A) that had already been defeated at the Council's Aug. 19 meeting, and thereby could not be reconsidered unless a motion was made by one of the members who had defeated it, a position not shared by City Attorney Sean Boutz, who said the ordinance had a new title.
Following a recess, Jenkins said he had just called attorney friends who represent other cities, and they agreed with his opinion.
"I move to table this ordinance until we have written legal opinion as to why this falls outside reconsideration rules," he said, a motion that failed by the same vote.
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During the discussion that followed, the Council split the ordinance into three parts - 165B to allow the budget to accept and disperse a grant obtained by the police department; 165C to consider staff and salary adjustments made by Mayor Wendy Van Orman in January; and 165D to add a city administrator position, a move championed by Van Orman as the appropriate position for current Community Development Director Doug Smith but one that has received some pushback from Council members.
A tense discussion on 165C was continuing when the clock struck 10 p.m. Liberty Lake City Council rules require a meeting to end by 10 p.m. or be extended by the unanimous agreement of the Council. After Councilwoman Judi Owens moved to extend the meeting 15 minutes, Schuler and Langford opposed, and the meeting adjourned on the spot.
Brian Sayrs and David Crump, both original members of the City Council, said after the meeting they can only recall one other time a meeting ended under the rule, and that was well after 10 p.m.
For more on the meeting, visit The Splash Blog.