← Legal & Legislative Committee · 2015-07-27 · Legal & Legislative Committee Meeting
ORDER-2015-182 : Be it ordered that the Rules of Order of the Melrose Board of Aldermen be amended to add Rule 32B and Rule 32C as set forth herein.
Agenda original PDF
Minutes original PDF
ORDER-2015-182 Amending Rules of Order of the Board of Aldermen Be it ordered that the Rules of Order of the Melrose Board of Aldermen be amended to add Rule 32B and Rule 32C as set forth herein. Hold Legal & Legislative Committee City of Melrose Page 2 Updated 8/25/2015 12:37 PM
Transcript
▶ 2:30:57 John N. Tramontozzi: i guess you may not be needed mr shenna the uh what's the will of the desire of the committee
▶ 2:31:05 John N. Tramontozzi: on that order any monica alderman Medeiros is the maker of that order yes uh if i may again
▶ 2:31:09 Monica C. Medeiros: i'm not a member of this committee um i submitted this uh back in may the goal of this order is just kind of to give us a little bit more consistency in how we're receiving communications and how they're shared you know with both with the committee and with the public i do think i want to compliment i don't want in any way to make it seem like our clerk of committees our city clerk is not you know passing on information they absolutely are i just felt that it maybe that part needed to be added into sort of codified if you will but really dealing with communications that we receive from different members of the administration or members of the public that are specifically addressed to all of us i sometimes i had been told that we need to vote in order to add them to the order and add them to iqm2 and other times you know we do have some city officials who or appointees members of the administration who just automatically we have this great little system nifty iqm2 meeting portal and some of them just upload the information directly there and it wasn't really consistent so this basically says that any communications that are addressed to all of us be they from the public or from from members of the administration would be added to the order and added to iqm2 and that that you know these are these are items that i think affect um and possibly influence all of us in our decision making process and i think it's nice to have them available as soon as possible in the portal for for us to look at to make sure that we're seeing consistently and that the public can see them as well and just amending the rule 32c is talking about when when we have a member here on the board who requests information say from the city solicitor or something of that nature that that that request itself is something that should be shared the the answer to that should be shared with the committee as a whole and with the public and added to the iqm m2 so that's that's my intent i'm not a lawyer
▶ 2:33:40 John N. Tramontozzi: so hopefully it's understandable any for any discussion by committee members all right did
▶ 2:33:51 Francis X. Wright Jr.: i see a hand i'm sorry no i was just gonna say i mean i'd make a motion to recommend all but only to the extent that it not only to the extent but to the extent that it reflects that which my experience is is already being done you know I believe the clerk of committees and the city clerk get me at least the documentation that they receive in a prompt way I know oftentimes that they have a meeting they received documentation either from third parties or from the administration and they're in the midst of preparing for that evening's meeting yet they my experience is that they've been quick to make sure that the members of this board receive copies as well so again I it seems to only reflect my experience with the clerk of committees and the city clerk but if it's the will of this board to codify it in this way then I'll make that motion for purposes of discussion
▶ 2:35:03 Mary Beth McAteer-Margolis: thank you I would say that my experience has been very similar to alderman rights I just I find this a little redundant if you will this is pretty much how I think we have been doing business since we have had the portal I believe on occasion if there's been a glitch with you know uploading or something like that that this isn't going to address those types of issues I've also had very you know good experience with department heads when they're coming to us and have more information generally they get it to the clerk and get it online and and also often get us a hard copy for the meeting that night so in my mind it's this is already happening and I'm not really certain why the maker of the motion feels it's necessary to really put it in such a format when I think
▶ 2:35:59 Mary Beth McAteer-Margolis: that's kind of to be said that's how we do business based on open meeting law and everything else that we have to adhere to so very good I think you're
▶ 2:36:05 John N. Tramontozzi: here the maker of the motion is about ready to respond to your question so
▶ 2:36:10 Monica C. Medeiros: go right ahead thank you I know I've just I've been told at different times from either clerk committees or I wish it was a night where we had our city clerk here that we in order to have this information uploaded to IQ m2 that it needs to be voted on at at our meetings voted to be added I've made motions and taken some of these votes I think we've done some of that in the past few months months and I think everybody kind of looks sideways because we didn't necessarily think that a vote needed to be taken but if in order to get
▶ 2:36:50 Monica C. Medeiros: information into the portal we need to have somebody be responsible for doing so so I think we should be adding those things to the portal as a matter of course not by having to take a vote to it and then therefore in order to get it to the portal we need to assign somebody the duty to to do so and that's why this
▶ 2:37:16 Francis X. Wright Jr.: came up I don't have a definitive answer to this but and the city clerk isn't here to answer for herself but my thought is that perhaps what she's trying to say or is saying and is being misunderstood is that in order to add anything to the order itself it may have to be voted on because it's an amendment but to submit a document that goes along with it it seems to me that that is the possibility we do that as a matter of course we do that as a matter of course that's my experience I don't I mean I don't want to speak for the city clerk
▶ 2:37:52 Francis X. Wright Jr.: but I'm I guess it's not my experience but it may be because there may be different things different ways to add things to the IQ m2 system and whether it's an amendment to the order or whether it's it's a document relative to it may make a difference but in the city clerk's mind anyway no I don't know
▶ 2:38:18 John N. Tramontozzi: enough about the technology of the IQ to whatever it's called to know but any further discussion by committee members we have a desire or will by the committee members to act on this order for the alderman motion to keep the order in committee
▶ 2:38:37 Jaclyn L. Bird: so that we have a chance to talk to the city clerk further
▶ 2:38:47 John N. Tramontozzi: i think that would be that would seem reasonable i guess is there a second to that motion second by alderman wright very good we have a motion uh by alderman burr to retain it in committee seconded by alderman wright on that motion any further discussion seeing none all in favor all right all right that would be helping committee i think that concludes our business for this evening motion to adjourn ah motion by alderman mortimer seconded by second alderman byrd on the motion all favor all right posting then we are adjourned thank you good evening good night hi jim how are