Agenda rules spark discussion at commissioner's workshop
The Board of Commissioners continues to grapple with the best way to add last-minute items to its regular meeting agendas.
The board discussed that issue and other rules and polices it needs to follow when governing Pitt County during a workshop on Monday.
"Governing is hard work. It's not simple," said Patrice Roesler, manager of Elected Official Programming for the Center for Public Leadership and Governance, UNC School of Government, who facilitated the workshop.
"So many times when we see a board of commissioners start to have trouble it's because they've never talked about roles and responsibilities or their future or (they've never) come together around a set of goals," Roesler said.
The board has a procedure in place for setting agenda items, according to Janis Gallagher, county attorney.
County Manager Scott Elliott, with input from Chairwoman Beth Ward, prepares the agenda. Elliott needs to receive requests for agenda items at least 10 days before the meeting, when practical.
An agenda preview session is held at 4 p.m. each Thursday before a regularly scheduled Monday meeting. It is open to whoever wants to sit in, Elliott said.
The purpose of the session is to see what's on the agenda. However, it is not a time to discuss how commissioners will vote, Ward said.
At the preview session, attendees can ask questions and get clarification about items, Elliott said.
When the board meets the following Monday, the commissioners must approve the agenda by a majority vote at the beginning of the meeting.
Before the agenda's approval, board members are allowed to request that additional items be added. These requests must be approved by majority vote.
Gallagher said that the reason items are allowed to be added on the day of the meeting is to allow for some flexibility. For example, a grant application that was not known about at the time of the preview meeting might need approval.
However, some commissioners have observed problems when agenda items are added at the meeting.
Commissioner Chris Nunnally, District 3, said that frustration has arisen when there have been motions made for discussions items or appointments to be added to the agenda without information on those particular items being available prior to the meeting.
Commissioners need such information to carry out due diligence and to be prepared for whatever debate is necessary, Nunnally said.
"It is only fair that if we are going to take votes ... that any member of the commission have all the information in front of them when they walk in the door," he said.
The public needs to feel that items addressed in the agenda preview are, in fact, going to be the items that are going to come before this commission on any given Monday, he said.
"It's a really bizarre feeling to not be aware if there's going to be a motion to have something added that you are not prepared to argue for or against on a particular issue," he said.
In an interview following Monday's workshop, Nunnally spoke specifically of the way in which recent appointments to the Development Commission Board were made by the commissioners at their Sept. 23 meeting. Nunnally is the Board of Commissioners liaison to the the Development Commission and a voting member of that board.
Commissioner Tom Coulson, District B, made a motion at the beginning of the Sept. 23 meeting to add appointees to the development board as an item for decision.
Information about the two individuals had not been made available to the public or to all the commissioners prior to the meeting, Nunnally said.
Following Coulson's motion at the Sept. 23 meeting, Nunnally recommended that the commissioners wait to hear from the development board before adding this agenda item.
The board, comprised of 15 Pitt County citizens, had a process in place for naming appointments. Nunnally said he would like to hear the recommendations the board was planning to make at its next meeting, three days after the workshop meeting.
Coulson said there had already been a lengthy delay in making the appointments and that Scott Darnell, the new executive director, had just started his position. Coulson said that Darnell deserved to have a full board in place.
"The Development Commission clearly wanted to give their recommendations for appointment. We were not afforded that opportunity," Nunnally said.
At Monday's workshop, commissioners discussed the possibility of requiring a supermajority vote as a solution to last-minute items being added to the agenda.
A supermajority vote means that a simple majority vote of 5-4 (56 percent) would not be enough to approve a motion. Instead, approval of a motion would require a larger percentage of votes, such as 60, 67 or 75 percent.
The board took no action on requiring a supermajority, opting to discuss the issue further at a future meeting.
"These types of steps are steps towards greater transparency which is of critical importance for community engagement," Nunnally said.
In addition to agenda procedures, the commissioners discussed board appointment policies, their code of ethics and the role of commissioners on boards and committees.
The next regular meeting of the Board of Commissioners will be at 6 p.m. on Oct. 14 in the Eugene James Auditorium of the Pitt County Office Complex, 1717 W. Fifth St.
