HomeMy WebLinkAboutA040 - Email from City Attorney dated August 3, 2018 Re: The parliamentary process for the cap exception ordinance
Mark Lambert to: Gloria J Betcher 08/03/2018 02:30 PM
Cc: DVoss,jhaila, SSchainker
Gloria et al,
I understand your concern. This is the way I look at it.
We started with the ordinance as of second reading, and there was a proposed amendment re: bona fide
rentals.
What typically would happen at that point would be the following: if no one moves to adopt the
amendment, the amendment dies. Or, someone moves to adopt the amendment, and no one seconds it,
and it dies for lack of a second. Or, someone moves to adopt the amendment, there's a second, followed
by discussion and a vote, and then the amendment either passes or fails to pass.
However, you made a motion to not include the bona fide rental language in the ordinance. That motion
passed. The situation then was that we had a motion adopted to not put something into the ordinance
that already wasn't in the ordinance.
So, then the ordinance failed on final passage, and the ordinance was dead (for then). A motion to
reconsider was made, which then passed.
Then Amber made a motion to adopt the"bona fide rental" amendment. You raised the question at the
time whether the Council would have to move to reconsider your motion before voting on Amber's motion.
Amber responded that hers was a different motion.
I thought through it quickly at the time, and my call was that the Council did not have to reconsider your
motion, because Amber's motion was different. What I was thinking was that the Council had passed a
motion to not include the language, leaving us at status quo on the ordinance. Therefore, the "bona fide
rental" amendment had not been adopted. Typically, under parliamentary rules, if Motion B is made which
is the same or similar to, or conflicts with, Motion A, then Motion B would be out of order. Motion A would
have to be rescinded in some way in order to consider Motion B. Here, motion B was to not include the
proposed amendment, that already was not in the ordinance. That just left the ordinance at status quo.
As Amber's motion was to adopt the proposed amendment, which was the exact opposite of your motion.
Because one was in the negative, and one was in the positive, it seemed to me that they did not conflict
with each other. Because I decided they didn't conflict, it was allowable to proceed with Amber's motion
without the need to address reconsidering your motion.
Really, a decision on this would come down to whether the two motions were in conflict with or
same/similar to each other, and gets into what"conflicts" or"similar to" means in this situation. I
absolutely could see an argument that they conflict or that it was similar to your motion. At the moment, I
decided that they didn't conflict, as the adoption of your motion didn't change the ordinance; the net effect
was to leave it as it was; Amber's motion was to adopt the ordinance. I truly think that a "parliamentary
ruling" on this could have gone either way --one could argue it either direction --and I am comfortable
with how I called it.
At this point, the ordinance has been passed on third reading, and was already re-considered (which is
only allowed once), so there is no procedural method to bring the ordinance back for a "do over." If we
were able to another motion to reconsider, I would have suggested that to the Mayor as an alternative to
his planned veto, but we can't do that.
I hope this is helpful.
Mark
f / s
CITY OF
Ames
Mark O. Lambert
City Attorney
515.239.5146 main 1515.239.5142 fax
mlambert@city.ames.ia.us I City Hall, 515 Clark Avenue I Ames, IA 50010
www.CitvofAmes.org —Caring People—Quality Programs"' Exceptional Service —
"Gloria J Betcher" John, Mark, Steve, and Diane, I reviewed the pro... 08/02/2018 06:27:58 PM
From: "Gloria J Betcher"<gloriabetcherwardl@gmail.com>
To: jhaila@city.ames.ia.us, MLambert@city.ames.ia.us, DVoss@city.ames.ia.us,
SSchainker@city.ames.ia.us
Date: 08/02/2018 06:27 PM
Subject: The parliamentary process for the cap exception ordinance
John, Mark, Steve, and Diane,
I reviewed the progress of the meeting after speaking with John about his veto. I'm wondering if
we followed parliamentary procedure and if the ordinance he vetoed was even legitimate.
As I read the situation, I made a motion to not include the "bona fide" language. That motion was
adopted. We then acted on that motion by doing a third reading, which failed. Chris moved to
reconsider that motion; reconsideration passed. Amber then made a new motion that, in essence,
rescinded my previously passed motion by adding the"bona fide" language. Since that previous
motion was adopted and acted on, I don't think it could be rescinded through a new, counter
motion. If it could be voted on, Amber, I think, would first have to move to rescind the previous
motion and then make a new, counter motion.
Maybe I am wrong about this, but it seems that an adopted motion has to be rescinded before an
opposite motion can be made. The fact that we acted on the original motion may also preclude
rescinding it later.
I could be wrong. I'm not a parliamentarian. But I know Mark stated that this was not
reconsidering the original motion because it was a different motion. I think what we had was a
situation that called for rescinding a prior motion.
What do you think of this reading? I know everyone is leaving town soon, so I wanted to send
this before you hit the road.
Thanks for your thoughts.
Gloria
Sent from my iPad