The Vandalia City Council held a special meeting June 5, 2024, at 4:30 PM in council chambers. The agenda listed comments from interested citizens and an executive session on the appointment, employment, discipline, promotion, or compensation of a public employee. After council agreed to hear public comment, residents spoke about the performance of City Manager Dan Went. Council then entered executive session; no final action was reported in the available transcript.
The special council meeting of June 5th is now called to order. Several council members have requested a meeting. So at this time it's recommended council enter into executive session to consider the appointment, employment, discipline, promotion, or compensation of a public employee. Have a motion. So moved. Second. I have a motion by Councilwoman Farce and a second by Councilwoman Dugan to go into executive session. Call point of order. Your honor. I would like to ask uh in reference to city section 220.01E emergency meetings, uh, which this was called under. Um it reads in part that the order of business of the emergency meetings shall be transact transacted in an order to be fixed by the mayor, unless council by majority vote suspends the rule and changes the order. And my request is obviously I know that there are several council members, including myself who are proponents of transparency and open government, and I know that council member Avalotis Weaver communicated in an email just this past Friday to all of council that it's quote unfair and biased to limit public comment and discussion from interested parties, end quote. And that was related to the special meeting we had on Monday night on a zoning matter. Um we allowed public comment during that meeting, even though it is not a public hearing and is not permitted. I also believe councilman or councilmember Dugan is also a big proponent of public input as she has shared this meeting notice as a public meeting all over social media the past 24 hours. So I would assume assume that she has no problem hearing from the public as well. So my question for council would be I'm making a motion that we allow public participation for all these residents, business owners, and or city employees who have chosen to attend a public meeting tonight instead of us going into executive session and causing them disruption into their lives this evening while they wait for us to emerge from executive session. So that is my motion is that we allow public comments prior to recessing into executive session. That would be the will of council. Mr. Mayor No. I'd like to speak before you go into executive session. Well, at this time that's fine. I'll second then. So you have a motion or second. Um just as a point of order, it's not an emergency meeting, it's a special meeting. Um it was specifically listed as a special meeting. Emergency meetings are meetings between 12 hours and 24 hours, and this had more than 24 hours notice, but nonetheless, there is a motion in the second. So I assume you want me to call roll. Sure. Councilmember Dugan. No. Councilmember Lewis. Pardon me, which which motion are we voting on? To allow public comment. To hold the meeting at have public comment. Oh, I'm sorry, I just realized we did have a motion. We have two motions. Thank you. Yeah, we would need a withdrawal of the first motion to consider the second motion. And the motion is to have public comment, not to have the meeting out here, and then going to no no. I mean, uh the matter that I believe wants to be addressed should be in executive session. My motion is to have the hearing of the public prior to us recessing into executive session, which could be ours, and not tie up all these people's time who have obviously made an effort to be here for a reason tonight. So that's my my request is that we have a public comments from public or interested citizens or the public prior to going into executive session as a point of order. Uh councilmember FARST would need to uh withdraw the motion, or council member Dugan would need to withdraw the second to take care of that first motion before we technically can move to the second motion. We have to reverse the order. Yes, yes. Are you withdrawing? No, you are. I'm withdrawing this.