Was it legal to change the Vote?
An extract from "The Scott, Foresman "Robert's Rules of Order"":
Page 345 sect.44
So there you have it foks the plot thickens with Councillor Spooner's vote. If the Official Recorder, the Manager of Legislative Services records the vote as 5-2 and the Chair of the meeting announces the result as 5-2 officially it is is 5-2. It will be interesting to see if the minutes are amended for the next Council meeting in the adoption of those minutes. If they have been changed it will be disputable and subject to discussion.
In another vein a comment has been posted on a previous post but must be repeated here for wider education of the readers:
I am the original "anonymous" about the Spooner vote-change trick. For the record, I am NOT any of the "anonymous" since then until now --though those anonymouses had interesting comments. Every person I spoke to who was at the meeting all agree Bob Spooner cast a "Nay" vote. Every person I spoke to who watched the meeting on TVCogeco agree Bob Spooner cast a "Nay" vote. People at the meeting and watching on TV all agree that the Town Clerk read it back that way and Councillor Spooner did not correct her. The vote was announced as 5 - 2.
The fact that the Town Clerk acknowledges a change happened THE NEXT MORNING clearly confirms that Spooner voted "nay" at the meeting. He was not correcting an error. He was changing his vote after the fact.
What is the legality, in a Recorded Vote, to cast the vote one way at the meeting and then change it the following morning? What does the Municipal Act say about this?
As is his habit, the morning of Tuesday March 10, Councillor Spooner was out and about in different places downtown. He told anyone who asked that he had voted "Nay" and also said he went into the in-camera meeting that came right after the meeting with the censure vote to tell all who voted "Yay" that he did not agree what they did. Apparently he underwent an adjustment to his p.o.v. soon after that, contacted Lorraine Brace and changed his vote. Make no mistake. He changed his vote. He did not just correct an error in the way everyone else in the world heard him.
Who gave him a viewpoint adjustment? How can this be "not important"? Councillors know a recorded vote is a significant event. How can such a significant formal procedure be revised 16 hours after the fact? Ben, what does the Municipal Act or Robert's Rules say about changing a vote after the vote is taken and announced, after the meeting ends, after 16 hours elapses? To know what he did, we don't need Spooner to tell us what he did, we saw it for ourselves. We need him or someone to tell us why he did it. We need Mayor Delanty or someone to tell us why he was allowed to do it.
If Bob Spooner thought this was going to go away because he says so he is wrong a lot of people are now really talking about this situation. It doesn't look good!
Page 345 sect.44
So there you have it foks the plot thickens with Councillor Spooner's vote. If the Official Recorder, the Manager of Legislative Services records the vote as 5-2 and the Chair of the meeting announces the result as 5-2 officially it is is 5-2. It will be interesting to see if the minutes are amended for the next Council meeting in the adoption of those minutes. If they have been changed it will be disputable and subject to discussion.
In another vein a comment has been posted on a previous post but must be repeated here for wider education of the readers:
I am the original "anonymous" about the Spooner vote-change trick. For the record, I am NOT any of the "anonymous" since then until now --though those anonymouses had interesting comments. Every person I spoke to who was at the meeting all agree Bob Spooner cast a "Nay" vote. Every person I spoke to who watched the meeting on TVCogeco agree Bob Spooner cast a "Nay" vote. People at the meeting and watching on TV all agree that the Town Clerk read it back that way and Councillor Spooner did not correct her. The vote was announced as 5 - 2.
The fact that the Town Clerk acknowledges a change happened THE NEXT MORNING clearly confirms that Spooner voted "nay" at the meeting. He was not correcting an error. He was changing his vote after the fact.
What is the legality, in a Recorded Vote, to cast the vote one way at the meeting and then change it the following morning? What does the Municipal Act say about this?
As is his habit, the morning of Tuesday March 10, Councillor Spooner was out and about in different places downtown. He told anyone who asked that he had voted "Nay" and also said he went into the in-camera meeting that came right after the meeting with the censure vote to tell all who voted "Yay" that he did not agree what they did. Apparently he underwent an adjustment to his p.o.v. soon after that, contacted Lorraine Brace and changed his vote. Make no mistake. He changed his vote. He did not just correct an error in the way everyone else in the world heard him.
Who gave him a viewpoint adjustment? How can this be "not important"? Councillors know a recorded vote is a significant event. How can such a significant formal procedure be revised 16 hours after the fact? Ben, what does the Municipal Act or Robert's Rules say about changing a vote after the vote is taken and announced, after the meeting ends, after 16 hours elapses? To know what he did, we don't need Spooner to tell us what he did, we saw it for ourselves. We need him or someone to tell us why he did it. We need Mayor Delanty or someone to tell us why he was allowed to do it.
If Bob Spooner thought this was going to go away because he says so he is wrong a lot of people are now really talking about this situation. It doesn't look good!
3 comments:
I'd love to attend the next Council meeting when this is brought up. The group of 6 with their high-faluten ethical standards will have to be exceedingly transparent to explain all these discrepancies, especially if they don't want their "high road" to be revealed as the low road taken. They set themselves up as exemplary. They posed as defenders of municipal staff, and perhaps compromised a municipal staff member to violate vote changing regulations. What a joke!
What does Roberts Rules say on page 44 about "general consent"? That could mean just about anything and give the bad boys something to hide behind.
As Desi would say to Lucy, they "got alotta 'splainin' to do".
I wouldn't hold my breath....maybe it'll all just go away.....NOT!
This may finally be the pimple that turns into a serious infection, bringing with it a host of issues and problems. If only....!
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