City Council holds unusual meeting

     It was business as usual for most of the February City Council meeting last Tuesday. Amendments were made to Ordinance 0-0802-002 known as “The Land Development Code of the City of Milledgeville, Georgia.” The original ordinance was passed and adopted December 10, 2002.
       Changes were made to sections dealing with who can run for a position on the Planning Commission, how many terms each representative from each district can serve, and the organization of the Commission.
     Five members were appointed to the Historic Preservation Commission. The five are John Alton (Chairman), Paul Scarboro, Arlin Brown, Ray Olivier, and Robert Binion. There are also three current members serving: Debby Arnold, Hunter McComb, and Villaine Waldhauer. Even with the new appointments, the Commission is still short one member.
       After all business had been taken care of, the Council went into executive session on behalf of a personnel issue. They returned and the announcement was made that no action was taken. However, a movement was made to adjourn yet again to executive session for possible litigation. When they returned the second time, they announced that no action was taken. City Clerk Bo Danuser is exempt from these sessions because he is not a member of the council. He spoke of how rarely executive session employed.
       “This is highly unusual,” Danuser said.
       Executive session is when all members of the council leave the chambers and meet privately. There are only three reasons the council may exclude the public; in matters of real estate, litigation, and personnel issues. Litigation is the passing of laws. Personnel issues deal with city employees. The members must sign an affidavit claiming the issue is all that was discussed in the session and they must announce if a vote was taken. 
       In the City Council case, the litigation and the issue of personnel where about the same subject but it was two different acts so they had inform the public of both actions. A motion has to be made to adjourn to executive session both times as well.

Posted by Colonnade Archives on Jan 25 2008. Filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry