Speaker numbers apply only to this recording.
The Whitehall City Council convened on September 1, 2026, at 7:00 p.m. in the Council Chamber for a special process to nominate, debate, and appoint a new Council President following a vacancy. The meeting was chaired by Treasurer Janell Luke, who served as a neutral facilitator under adopted rules. After multiple rounds of nominations, debate, and voting, Patricia Balzer was elected as the new Council President.
The flip side of that is if you don't have to talk for the full three minutes, but if you get up there and only say something for ten seconds and the chair thinks that your your talk for your three minutes is meant to subvert the rule and the requirement that council made clear that they wanted uh the candidates to talk to them, that they could then be disqualified from that consideration as well. Well uh I I would ask them because I I could make a motion to uh strike certain things from this, but what I would instead ask uh the chair, uh Ms. Luke, uh, is if she would have some uh level of uh understanding within these rules that people are nervous perhaps, uh they didn't get these rules until just a couple hours ago that she take that into mind. Yes, okay. Um the other thing was, and this is a question, um uh number three, debate C it says uh uh the order of debate shall be, etc. etc. etc. as determined by seniority, and then it says, and then alphabetical with the most junior members debating first. I I'm not sure I I understand that. So it's first by seniority and then uh alphabetically, correct. But isn't there only one debate? No, so what that refers to is Mr. McCann and Mr. Atkins came on to council at the same time and have the same seniority. So which one of them goes first, then it goes alphabetic? Oh, I see. So that's not two different debate situations. Okay. Um that was pretty much it. But also though, I wanted to make sure because this is a very uh sensitive thing that we're doing here, and I I just wanted to make sure that uh the folks on council understand everything that uh we've got laid out because it is fairly uh uh I mean are we going to go over these rules before we vote on it or once we vote on it, then we talk about it. No, once you adopt the rules, Ms. Luke will begin the nomination process rule uh and I'd like to say I understand the rules, so it's not that I mean I'm I can speak to them for myself. I understand the rules. I understood them from the hour and a half debate that we had last week. So I understand pretty well. And excuse me, and reviewed them again before the meeting, so I'm I'm well aware of that. But uh so uh but I just want to make sure that you know there's a general understanding that we do get what's going on here because the thing is is once this meeting starts, Robert's rules of order is out the door, and we don't have the ability to say excuse me, Ms. Luke, or excuse me, there's this so I'm concerned that everyone is on board. Are we allowed to ask a question? To you if we need a clarification on a rule, are we allowed to ask that? Uh I would direct them to the chair, and then if the chair has a question, um she could direct it to Miss Ottawa or myself as parliamentarians and the attorney, but um in general uh the chair will run the meeting and has the final set. Mr. Lucas the post. And so when if we have a question to ask, is that considered an interruption? Yes. Well, this is what I mean. It I'm just trying to get this train in order before it leaves the station, because once it leaves the station, there's no stopping. And that's my concern. But uh so in other words, and and with all due respect to Ms. Luke, uh, who's going to guide and share the meeting? Uh you know, if if things, if the it's going off into uh somewhere it shouldn't go or for sure, that's my job is to keep everyone on the set. I understand, but I just want to make sure because we don't have the ability to say, hey, wait a minute. And hopefully the way these rules are crafted, if everyone follows