After reading the minutes of the June council meeting, I began to realize that the motion to waive the second and third readings to amend the ordinance on stop signs had failed. As I mentioned in my last blog, the motion had received only three votes instead of the required four votes to approve such a waiver. Obviously, the Mayor and Council members were under the mistaken impression that the motion/resolution had passed. I felt obligated to inform them of their error.
I wrote a letter to the Mayor informing him of the procedural error and I cited the appropriate state statutes which govern the procedure for amending ordinances. I pointed out to the Mayor that the proper thing to do was to start the process over again, schedule another public hearing and have three readings of the proposed resolution to amend the ordinance. If the readings were scheduled days apart, the resolution would only require three affirmative votes at each reading. But if the council wanted to waive any reading, it would require four votes. At that time there were only four council members on the council. So it appeared that there could be no waiver of any of the readings since Councilman Lobberecht was adamantly opposed to installing anymore stop signs in town, and he would probably continue to vote against a waiver of the required readings.
During the months of April, May and June, there were only four council members attending the monthly meetings. In March, Doug Greenlee had been appointed by the council to fill the council seat left vacant when John R. Johnson resigned. At that time, I was writing a column for the Albia Union-Republican paper and in one of my columns I questioned the validity of Greenlee’s appointment and I cited various state statutes to support my argument. Greenlee attended one council meeting in March and then POOF he disappeared without any explanation. Normally, at the start of each council meeting there is a roll call for attendance. The name of each councilman is called out by the city clerk and if the council member is in attendance, he responds by answering “here.” For some mysterious unexplained reason, the roll calls disappeared for three months. The Mayor would skip the roll call and go right into the agenda of the meeting. Normally, in the minutes of the meeting, each council member’s name is listed either under the heading of “Present” or “Absent;” but, for some mysterious unexplained reason, Doug Greenlee’s name disappeared from the minutes. Either he was present or he was absent. But no, it must have been magic. Did I actually see him sitting in a council seat at a special council meeting in March? Or was it an illusion.
I was tired when I went to the council meeting on July 6 and I felt that it was going to be another dull meeting on a hot summer night. But I had forgotten that sometimes magical things happen at City Hall. As the council members walked into the council chambers, all of a sudden there was a POOF and emerging from the smoke was -- (sound the trumpets) -- Doug Greenlee. He reappeared out of nowhere. There were no announcements. No warnings – other than the trumpets. After the council members were seated, lo and behold, the Mayor started the meeting by asking that a roll call be taken by the City Clerk -- just when I was getting used to no roll calls, they reappeared. I knew I was tired, but was I seeing things, or was this another illusion? I waited in suspense for the rest of the meeting for some kind of explanation for Greenlee’s reappearance. (Not Really). A couple of weeks later, I looked at the minutes of the meeting and, ABRACADABRA, (I’m sure you know where I am going with this) Greenlee’s name mysteriously reappeared in the minutes as being present. Halleluiah! Halleluiah!
At some later date, I will come back to the Greenlee chronicle. But, to continue with the story about the stop signs, I thought the return of Greenlee could play a significant role in re-initiating and expediting the council’s procedural process in amending the ordinance for the stop signs. His vote would provide the necessary fourth vote to waive the extra readings of the resolution, and Lobberecht’s negative vote would not matter. Greenlee returned to the council in July; but, to date, there has been no action initiated by the mayor or council to start the process over again.
Back in June, the Mayor was non-committal on the stop sign issue. Whereas, Councilman Lobberecht was steadfast in his opposition of adding any additional stop signs in town. Evidently, the Mayor, for some mysterious reason, has been reluctant to take any further action. Certainly, he would not be influenced by the views of just one council member. But there has been a definite lack of communications by the Mayor with some of the other council members concerning this issue. If action had been taken in July to start the process over, the signs could have been installed as early as August.
It is frustrating to see our top local elected officials in action; or maybe I should say instead, to see the inaction and all the hocus pocus and misdirection. But we should learn from city hall. All we need to do is say the magic word, ABRACADABRA, and the stop signs will suddenly appear out of nowhere.