Robert’s Rules of Order trampled by the cabal
Editorial
Updated August 21, 2023 at 7:40 a.m. — Clarify analysis about scheduled vote.
Anyone who has watched or attended the series of City Council meetings debating the Sucette Harbor proposal has to be asking themselves: What the hell is going on in Mandeville city government?
A recurring theme seems to be that words don’t matter anymore, rules don’t matter anymore, and worse, does the actual law even matter, as long as Sucette Harbor gets approved?
We are going to walk through each violation of parliamentary procedure and each time the written word was ignored during the most recent Sucette Harbor special meeting August 15th. In the end, you too will feel as we do, Mandeveille has been seized by a shadow government, a cabal, of lawyers, council members, and appointees who all conspire to get around the rules and defy what the people actually want.
By the time you finish reading this, and if you go back and watch the video excerpts that we point to, you will be purchasing your copy of Robert’s Rules of Order (RROO) and making your tin foil hat to wear to the next Sucette Harbor special meeting.
Danielson discards advertised agenda, declaring there will be no vote on adoption
The advertised agenda clearly read “Adoption of Ordinance 23-16,” but at the outset, presiding chairman Councilman at Large Rick Danielson declared there would be no vote on the adoption of the ordinance that night, despite “adoption” having been legally advertised in accordance with Louisiana Open Meetings Law. His explanation was that the ordinance wasn’t ready yet for a final vote.
“I think it would be very difficult to vote on a final ordinance this evening until we have cleaned up everything in Ordinance 23-16, with any amendments, any conditions, any possible changes that we would discuss this evening. So the plan is to not vote on the final ordinance tonight.”
That may be well and good if you’re a Sucette Harbor proponent, but what about those council members who had the right to vote it down if they so chose?
Analysis:
Danielson’s surprise no-vote declaration at the start of the August 15th meeting seems to run contrary to Louisiana’s Open Meetings Law. We guess the cabal realized that if they didn’t quash a potential motion to adopt that night, it would have been completely over for Sucette Harbor.
Sometimes pieces of legislation become malformed or nonsensical due to so-called “poison pills” or “wrecking amendments,” forcing even the proponents to vote against their own proposals. It’s part of the process and it’s all fair game.
This is exactly what should have happened to Ordinance 23-16 on August 15th. The vote was legally advertised in accordance with Open Meetings Law.
Each council member should have had the right to move for adoption under RROO and state law, even if, or we should say particularly if, their intention was to kill it. That’s how the system is supposed to work. The proponents of Sucette Harbor likely would have felt compelled to vote against it.
Danielson was essentially saying that in case the results of the meeting would have been to yield a “good” ordinance which might have gained support from the majority, including a drastically changed site plan and other provisions, the ordinance may have needed to be re-advertised before a vote, not to mention the developer would have needed the time in which to make said changes.
But Mandeville Daily believes that if they wanted to change the scheduled vote, they should have used the rules to do so. This would have meant making the case to Council Chairman Councilman at Large Jason Zuckerman to publish an updated agenda reflecting that change before the legal deadline.
And as for the developer at this point, they were given marching orders from a majority on the council July 12th with the 90-unit limit. They should have (1) complied with the 90 units, (2) asked a council member to move to “reconsider” on July 24th and win that argument on merit, or (3) withdrawn their application.
If they had tried the motion to “reconsider” on July 24th, it sounds like they would have succeeded, based on District I Councilwoman Rebecca Bush’s comments August 15th, which we will dive into later in this piece.
Had they done that, we could have had a workable ordinance by now. This was their fault, and yet another unforced error. By all accounts, the ordinance deserved to be voted down August 15th.
City attorney offers absurd interpretation of time limits rule for ‘reconsideration’
The second stop on our journey to the Land of the Lawless happened when Zuckerman called his first point of order after Kreller moved to amend a previously adopted amendment. Citing RROO, the chairman should have immediately called Kreller out of order instead.
Parnell Jr., Council Clerk Kristine Scherer, acting Council Chairman Councilman at Large Rick Danielson and other officials huddled for about 20 minutes before returning the meeting to order under a ruling that a “motion to reconsider” instead of a new amendment could move forward.
This was an indirect acknowledgment that Zuckerman’s first point of order was indeed “well taken” in parliamentary terms, meaning, he was right. And under the prescribed procedure for considering a point of order, the job of the chairman, parliamentarian and lawyer is to strictly determine if the motioner, Kreller, is out of order, and not to find him some other means to achieve his objective.
And the issue really wasn’t resolved yet as we would soon find out.
Local attorney Kevin Vogeltanz spoke during public comment addressing assistant city attorney David Parnell Jr.:
17:03
Vogeltanz: “In a prior life, I did a lot of work with Robert’s Rules. I do not believe that this is a proper motion because under Robert’s Rules you can only make a motion to reconsider an amendment at the same meeting it was passed, or at the next meeting, and we are at least two meetings beyond when the 90 amendment passed. … Motions to reconsider can be made at the same night of the meeting, or at the next meeting. The motion should be withdrawn. Thank you.
Parnell Jr.: “It’s actually when that business has adjourned. And so these meetings have been adjourned, (but) there’s been no decisions on anything. The amendments have not been voted on finally. Uh, so the issue is still before the City Council, and there hasn’t been a finding. So he’s correct that you can’t carry over business to business to business, but this is still the same piece of business. There’s an ordinance in front of you that’s had seven meetings that have been adjourned, so…”
Danielson: “Ok. Alright.”
Analysis:
What the hell is Parnell Jr. talking about?
Vogeltanz was 100% correct. Based on his prior recommendation to Danielson, Parnell Jr. at the very least had stumbled upon §12:25 of RROO which says a new amendment cannot alter or nullify an existing amendment.
What’s more, three different sections of RROO — §6:26 (4), §37:8 (b), §37:10 (b) — all specifically say that the motion to “reconsider” a previously adopted amendment can only be done at the same meeting the amendment was adopted “or on the next succeeding day within the session” of multiple meetings. The August 15th meeting was the second Sucette session meeting after the amendment in question was adopted.
So Parnell Jr.’s statement that “it’s actually when that business has adjourned” is completely absurd and contradicts everything in RROO, which repeatedly uses the term “session” and defines it as either a single meeting, or a series of meetings, like at a convention, or the series of meetings on Sucette Harbor.
Did developers believe they had a deal with Bush?
Bush, who is seen by many as a potential swing vote in this matter, let everyone know right away at the August 15th meeting that the developer team — Woodward Interests President Bill Hoffman and attorney Paul Harrison — had met with her twice to discuss the situation.
“Let me reiterate the reason I made the motion and that was to make sure we have a full hearing and consideration of all the issues. And I met with the developer twice in the past few weeks. … [Then, while looking to her left directly at Kreller] I’m a bit disappointed that this issue has come up at this juncture. I felt like there were some other things we could have addressed before, but here it is.”
Does this mean Bush was expecting this tactic and planning for it, but Kreller screwed things by showing the developer’s hand too early… had he been instructed to wait until after less controversial pieces of the ordinance had been fixed?
Consider Bush’s next statement only minutes later:
6:33
Bush: “One thing in response … One of the reasons why I wanted to listen to the new information is, my big issue, two of my big issues are scale [and density], and what I see before me did a lot toward scale. I don’t know how I will vote, and we still have to address the number of units, but I think it’s worth discussing.”
Analysis:
Is this why the developers, despite having been asked to return with a site plan that matched the 90-unit amendment, showed up August 15th with so-called “new information” or a site plan for 178 units instead?
Does this mean that Hoffman and Harrison felt they had reached a deal with Bush, by conceding one of her issues — scale — in exchange for her allowing the 90-unit limit to be lifted?
She was very quick to offer the “motion to reconsider” once Zuckerman won his first point of order against Kreller. And she did say “we still have to address the number of units.” Because she was one of the votes for the 90-unit limit July 12th, could this be interpreted to mean she was now willing to nullify that previous action?
Having amendment read aloud considered dangerous to the cause
At one point, Zuckerman asked Scherer to read his original amendment from July 12th for which the motion to reconsider was being debated. Danielson ruled him out of order, saying that discussion was limited strictly to whether the motion to reconsider should move forward or not, to which Kreller quickly concurred.
10:08
Zuckerman: “Can I ask you to read back the previous amendment that we passed? I want to make sure we’re not putting some different spin on what we passed previously. I just think it would be helpful for everyone…”
Danielson: “But I think that is out of order as well because that’s getting to that amendment and we’re not at the amendment yet.”
Kreller: “I agree, that is out of order.”
Zuckerman: “All I’m asking is as part of this discussion of whether or not to reopen the amendment is if we can read the amendment we’re discussing reopening. Can we do that? … I don’t think that’s out of order.”
After a few minutes of back-and-forth and then asking Parnell Jr. for his sacred permission, he relented and allowed Scherer to read the minutes from the July 12th meeting that described Zuckerman’s amendment.
Analysis:
We knew the fix was in — that all the events of August 15th were being orchestrated by the shadow government — when Danielson tried to block the public from merely hearing the words read aloud.
Words. Just words. The truth. The public isn’t allowed to hear the truth. It might confuse them. It could destabilize the shadow government.
Zuckerman’s amendment — adopted by a majority of the council July 12th — is so dangerous and damaging to their cabal, the public wasn’t even going to be allowed to hear the words.
RROO §37:18 reads: “Whenever the motion to Reconsider is taken up, it is debatable if the motion proposed to be reconsidered is debatable, and debate can go into the merits of the question proposed to be reconsidered, as noted in Standard Characteristic 5.”
Zuckerman was right. He had in effect called a second point of order. But sadly, the point of order was “well taken” not because Parnell Jr. consulted RROO as we did here, but rather because he believed it would end up serving their long game to get around the 90-unit limit. Read his answer carefully:
Parnell Jr.: “But again, her motion is to reconsider that based on new information. Those are the only grounds you can file a motion to reconsider. You can’t just say I changed my mind two weeks later. It’s based on the new information that’s been received. That’s been the motion that’s made, seconded and is being discussed now. So again, I think it’s a good idea to find that original … amendment to the application, because you’re contemplating going back to what the applicant originally said, versus what the amendment y’all did the first time, or some other new amendment that may pass tonight.”
We peasants humbly thank Parnell Jr. for his magnanimous act of allowing us to hear words from the minutes of a meeting subject to Louisiana’s Open Meetings Law read aloud.
And we feel obligated to correct the record here, seeing that Parnell Jr. opened the door so widely.
This whole notion that the only way you can “reconsider” under Robert’s Rules is if there is some “new information” is poppycock.
It is a reason you can reconsider, but not the only reason you can reconsider.
“Those are the only grounds you can file a motion to reconsider,” he said.
RROO §37:1 reads: “The purpose of reconsidering a vote is to permit correction of hasty, ill-advised, or erroneous action, or to take into account added information or a changed situation that has developed since the taking of the vote.”
So really, the council could reconsider a previous action for whatever reason they want — not just “new information” — as long as it is within the time limitations that Parnell Jr. repeatedly ignored. Pretty much anything can fit into “ill-advised” if you are one of the affirmative swing votes who had changed their mind.
Parnell Jr. started repeating this “new information” mantra during the meeting, and soon other council members started repeating it too, but it was not based in rules that govern the motion to reconsider.
So where did he get it from?
Under §6:25 and §6:26, which is sort of like the table of contents for motions “that bring a question again before the assembly,” you will find: “pull from the table,” “rescind,” “amend something previously adopted,” “discharge to committee,” and last but not least “reconsider,” each with a brief summary of what they are with pointers to their respective detail sections.
But §6:26 does not set the rules for those items. The rules for “reconsider” are found at §37. This summary list at §6:26 is the only mention of the term “new information” in the entire body of RROO and it is non-binding, but the details found at §37 are binding.
City attorney forced to concede after Zuckerman pressed another point of order
And then about 10 minutes later, the absurd turned into insanity, when Zuckerman essentially called a third point of order:
27:44
Zuckerman: “I just heard an interpretation from you to say, well, the business of the council, this overall issue hasn’t been concluded, … I’d like somebody to just read that out of Robert’s Rules, whether it’s the parliamentarian or the city attorney.”
District III Councilwoman Jill McGuire: “And we did vote on the amendment.” [Parnell Jr. had minutes earlier said, “The amendments have not been voted on finally.”]
Parnell Jr.: “But the motion to reconsider was brought based on new information which is the only grounds it can be brought.”
Zuckerman: “I’m questioning your interpretation of whether it can be brought several meetings later after it’s been voted on. I’d just like somebody to read that.”
Parnell Jr.: “There’s also motion to amend something previously amended, so I mean, there’s different options. Uhm. We feel it’s proper.”
Person in Audience: “Could somebody read the rules, please?”
Zuckerman: “I’m just asking for somebody to read the rule.”
Analysis:
He could not answer the question. When given the benefit of the doubt and asked to show where — four times by Zuckerman and once by some lady in the audience — he could not even point to a general section or chapter of RROO.
Instead, he ominously let everyone know that they — this shadow government — have other “options” that they are willing to use in order to remove the 90-unit limit and to get this project pushed through. It was a reminder that they, this cabal, are the ones in charge, not us.
Parnell Jr. made another peculiar statement, by saying that the amendments weren’t really adopted yet, prompting the earlier retort from District III Councilwoman Jill McGuire.
So we finally ended up getting a second recess during which members of the audience were treated to several scrums of council members, developers, city officials, lawyers and members of the public who also happened to be lawyers.
The result, as we all know by now, was Danielson kinda-sorta acknowledging — without actually saying the words — that Zuckerman’s third point of order was also “well taken.” Zuckerman was three for three, even if Danielson refused to admit it.
What’s next?
At least some good came from Parnell Jr.’s performance that night. He unwittingly telegraphed the cabal’s next move: “There’s also motion to amend something previously amended [perhaps he meant ‘adopted’], so I mean, there’s different options. Uhm. We feel it’s proper.”
Hoffman et al are not likely to just go away and surrender the issue even though they’ve been backed into a corner. They may very well try what Parnell Jr. signaled with his “different options” remark.
In RROO, motion to “Rescind” or motion to “Amend Something Previously Adopted” found at §35 in RROO could very well be their last attempt to strike the 90-unit amendment using actual rules.
These motions allow one to either strike text from a previously adopted main motion or modify text of a previously adopted main motion.
§35:2: “[Rescind and Amend Something Previously Adopted] Can be applied to anything (e.g., bylaw, rule, policy, decision, or choice) which has continuing force and effect and which was made or created at any time or times as the result of the adoption of one or more main motions.”
Notice the words “main motion.” Amendments are “subsidiary motions” according to §12:1 and nothing more, therefore §35 should not apply.
According to the rules, such a motion would be ruled — or should be ruled — out of order.
But based on what we’ve seen during this process, there is no telling what this bunch involved in the cabal will do.
Sucette Harbor must be approved at all costs.
Let’s pray that Zuckerman and McGuire have their copies or RROO on-hand at the next meeting. Better yet, maybe they should hire attorneys to attend the meetings with them.
Don’t forget your tin foil hats.
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Mandeville Daily 
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