Speaker numbers apply only to this recording.
The Whitehall City Council Committee of the Whole met on Tuesday, August 25, 2026, at 6:41 PM. The central focus was the adoption of detailed temporary rules, proposed by City Attorney Bradley S. Nicodemus, to select a new Council President. Council also advanced several pieces of draft legislation, discussed widespread flooding impacts, and addressed traffic safety concerns.
Set it all the way down, Debian. It was acting funny this morning during court, because the area was. We got ladder up here. They're gonna start because it was spinning this morning. Oh, it's that area. Is that a work? I've got to flush it. Right. I don't know if you want to talk about it. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to right off city council committee meeting agenda. Tuesday, August 25th, 2026. We're getting a little late start at uh 6 41. We had a special meeting prior. Uh we will be done immediately following a special meeting administration. Well, we're done a special meeting administration. Uh council of a whole matters. There, excuse me, there are five pieces of draft legislation on the agenda. Uh committee of the whole legislation issues, and at this time, uh, city attorney, Mr. Nicodemus, wishes to have the floor. Thank you. Um, so I know last week we had talks about meetings. I had to cancel a couple of uh what we'll call meetings or interviews because of flooding in the basement and uh office and stuff. Uh still working on that. Uh, quite frankly, I have all of your emails for the past month and a half, including any that it didn't need to go through, but still need to talk to some people. Um that said, I had some time to think about how to uh sometimes as attorneys we try to mediate and find solutions. And uh I spent some time thinking about it and going back to what I know, which is uh congressional hearings and law, and if you like history, check out some of the nominating uh conventions of the 1800s because you'll see where I got these ideas. What I'm going to pitch to you tonight is an idea for you to consider to move forward with determining and appointing a president of council. If I did this right, everybody will have a little bit of heartburn with this, and everybody will like a little bit of this, and I think it'll be a good compromise if you choose to go forward with it. And that way we can press along. As I go through this, I'll ask you to hold any questions or comments till the end because I try to think of everything. So if I don't hit it right away, I might get it later. So we'll start with nominations. People interested in an appointment to counsel the president with email resumes, letters of interest, or just an email saying I want to be considered uh to Julia by September 1st at noon. That would be your next regularly scheduled uh council meeting next week. Names of those that email in will not be distributed until immediately prior to the meeting, at which point you would get a packet with all the information that was submitted. At the meeting, there would be a motion to open nominations, then the people having submitted resumes and letters will be called forward, and each will have three minutes to speak to counsel on why he or she wants to be council president and what qualifications they have. If a person cannot attend, because this is short notice, he or she can send a delegate, they can nominate one of you to speak on their half. They can send their six-year-old son or eighty four-year-old grandmother. They can still properly consider them for nominations. We would also say that just because a person could not be here does not send a delegate. After each person who submitted the documents has had an opportunity to speak, it will be an open call. Anybody in the audience that did previously want to uh throw their name in the ring will have an opportunity to come up and throw their name in the ring, and they will get the same three minutes. Once there's no more public speakers to put their names in consideration, council will then move to nominate. And in your nomination, it would be I nominate the person's name for president of council. If the nomination receives a second, that name and that person will be considered when we move on to the next step. You could nominate every person that puts their name in the hat for it, or based on what you hear, maybe you don't nominate certain people. There's no limit on who you can and can't nominate. There is no discussion on the nominations. Again, I nominate so and so.