Emergencies

City administration uses emergencies clauses too often for non-emergencies

By Roy Ockert Jr.

Oct. 6, 2012

Dr. Richard Wang, a political science professor who is running for the Jonesboro City Council, offered a lesson in good government to city officials Tuesday, and it’s one that should be heeded.

Wang appeared at the regular City Council meeting and raised an objection to the way council members were asked to pass, and in fact did, an ordinance creating a new job in the city Police Department. To get this done, the council placed the proposal on first reading, then waived second and third readings and finally approved it with an emergency clause attached.

That makes it effective immediately.

State law prescribes that a municipal ordinance be read three times at three separate meetings. That’s so everyone concerned, aldermen and even citizens of the city, have a chance to learn about what’s proposed, to study it, to discuss it and then to vote judiciously. Two-thirds of a city council can vote to “suspend the rules” and go through all three readings in one meeting, but it should not do so routinely.

When that’s done, the effective date of the ordinance can be 30 to 90 days after passage.

However, sometimes an emergency clause is attached to the ordinance, and it must be passed separately, also by a two-thirds vote.

Sometimes, these two tactics are used to reduce the chances of debate, dissension and-or amendment.

I wouldn’t suggest that’s the case here. More likely, as in most cases, it’s just a way of playing catch-up on something that should have been done previously.

On Tuesday Police Chief Michael Yates told the council that the administration had been working on the proposal contained in the ordinance for more than a year. That’s a pretty good reason not to pass an ordinance and make it effective in one meeting.

To his credit, Alderman Gene Vance reportedly raised his voice and vote over the rush to pass the ordinance.

But a review of six months’ worth of City Council minutes shows that the rush-it-through tactic is being used too often, on ordinances both minor and major.

One of the most important was Ord-12:047, passed on Aug. 21. Don’t remember that one? It made for a big headline.

In that ordinance the City Council voted unanimously for a $2.9 million deal to buy the Mercantile Center as part of the city’s plans to renovate the former bank and office building into a new City Hall. The deal includes trading the existing City Hall, valued at just over $1 million.

The ordinance flew through three readings and an emergency clause without a dissenting vote, even though the proposal wasn’t on the council’s printed agenda and therefore wasn’t mentioned in The Sun’s usual preliminary story about the meeting.

As far as I know, the only public discussion of the proposed deal took place during June 13 and Aug. 14 meetings of the council’s Building Facilities Committee. Unfortunately, The Sun and other local news media didn’t cover those meetings.

That means the public’s first knowledge of this multi-million-dollar deal, except for those few people who might have attended one or more of those three meetings, came after the fact.

That’s a bad practice.

I knew the deal had been brewing for more than a year, and I liked the idea. Possible alternatives looked piecemeal and short-sighted. But the secrecy was not wise or necessary.

The citizens of Jonesboro have a right to know when their elected representatives are considering such a huge expenditure. And they should know in time to express any opinions they might have over such a proposal.

In 2006 the City Council had an even more controversial and expensive proposal on the table. That was when hotelier John Q. Hammons was offering to build a convention center, if only the citizens of Jonesboro would pay for it and the city would undertake most of the risks of operating it.

An ordinance calling for a special election for a proposed 1-percent sales tax increase to fund the deal was passed, all in one meeting without debate and with an emergency clause attached. But the deal blew apart when the council balked at endorsing the proposal, too.

About the same time the council rushed through a separate, unrelated ordinance waiving competitive bidding for the purchase of automated vehicle locators for five transit system buses. Fortunately, questions of cost were raised before it was too late.

I would have hoped the lesson had been learned, but it must be one that is renewed on occasion.

Years ago, when I covered the Batesville City Council, the administration and council got into the habit of passing every ordinance in one meeting with an emergency clause. Finally, though, one alderman objected to the practice and started voting no. He lost most of those votes for a while, until finally some other aldermen got the message that rushing through ordinances is not good government.

Does Jonesboro have an alderman who will make a similar stand for us?

Roy Ockert is editor emeritus of The Jonesboro Sun and an independent columnist for the Arkansas News Bureau. He may be reached by e-mail at royo@suddenlink.net.