Did you know that during the special election, we actually elected George Smiley as council president? Yeah, I didn’t either.
Apparently taking a page from fellow Democrats in the Wisconsin Legislature, six New Castle County Council members were mysteriously absent from a committee meeting today.
The absences of Councilmen Bill Bell, Penrose Hollins, Joe Reda, Tim Sheldon, George Smiley and Jea Street resulted in the lack of a quorum at the council’s executive committee meeting, so nothing could be voted on, Council President Tom Kovach said.
So, the Democrats in Indiana and Wisconsin denied quorum to fight for the right of public unions to bargain collectively. What are Smiley, Bell, Hollins, Reda, Sheldon and Street fighting for? The right to sneak resuming into meeting minutes for an unnecessary development? The poor, put-upon developers? So noble.
There were two resolutions coming up, one from Lisa Diller and one from Dave Tackett that change the rules so that what Smiley did could not be repeated. Tackett’s resolution would make sure the titles were included (Smiley only listed the packet number) and Diller’s would stop the way council changes it rules, which it did last week to get around Tom Kovach. Delaware Coalition for Open Government (DelCOG) has filed a FOIA complaint about the rules changes, saying it violates the FOIA law since the rule changes (the ones limiting Kovach’s power) were not on the meeting agenda and need a 7 day notice. FWIW, the missing council members all said their simultaneous absences were an accident.
It looks like there are two camps – both accusing the other of abusing their power. The Smiley camp believes that Kovach is exercising a veto that he doesn’t have. The Kovach camp thinks that Smiley et al are abusing the rules to get around objections of other council members.
My favorite part of today’s article, though, has to be Councilman Street’s reaction to proposals for disciplinary actions.
“What’s he gonna do, beat me?” Street said. “He should discipline himself for invoking veto power that only the county executive has.”
I think we’re going to keep hearing more about this as time goes on. It will be interesting to see who wins this power struggle. Where do you come down on this fight?