Columbus County Commission has no rules

• One commissioner calls into question the legality of a motion requiring items to be on the agenda before a motion or vote. Further research unsuccessful in turning up any uniform rules ever adopted by the board.

By NICOLE CARTRETTE
Staff Writer

Rules are made to be broken.

It’s a statement that says a lot but what happens when there are no rules?

Recent discussion at the Columbus County Board of Commissioners meeting calls into question what rules and procedures the board should follow and brings to light that the board may not have ever adopted any uniform procedures.

Monday the board was still split over whether or not topics must be on the agenda before a motion can be made.

Commissioner Amon McKenzie is pushing for a policy that no items can be voted on nor any motion made unless the topic is listed on the agenda. His motion, which was seconded by commissioner Bill Memory, met opposition for the second time from the newer members of the board.

Commissioner Ricky Bullard, with a copy of Robert’s Rules in hand, read directly from the book that a suspension of the rules requires a two-thirds vote.

“I think that will be up to us,” Chairman Sammie Jacobs said. “I don’t agree with that.”

“You have to have a two-thirds majority,” Commissioner James Prevatte reiterated.

“Mr. Attorney?” Prevatte looked toward County Attorney Steve Fowler for some explanation or legal advice.

“Certainly that’s new information to me,” Fowler said.

Memory then made a motion to table the matter until the board hears from the attorney on the question of whether or not such a policy can be enacted with simply a majority of the board.

“Make sure you get back with each one of us,” Jacobs said, looking at Fowler.

According to general statute 153A-41, the board has the power to adopt its own written rules of procedure but they must be “in the spirit of generally accepted principles of parliamentary procedure.”

One of the “most basic” generally accepted principles is that “the majority rules but the minority is heard,” Fleming Bell, a professor with the N.C. Institute of Government said. “Both have some argument for their position when you don’t have anything in writing.”

Bell said that if it has long been a practice of the commissioners to bring up any topic they wish and the full board accepted or adopted that as an unwritten policy it could mean there is good argument that a change would require the same full board approval.

On the other hand, Bell pointed out majority rules and if by tradition the board has made policy changes to the rules by a simply majority vote that may be all that is needed.

Many counties have adopted bylaws or rules of procedures specific to their boards. While the Columbus County Board of Commissioners have established and posted rules regarding their public comment policy, there appears to be no identifiable rules of procedure for the board.

The clerk to the board said Tuesday she was not aware of any bylaws established by the board. A search of online commissioner minutes dating back to the 1920s did not return rules of procedure, bylaws or Robert’s Rules.

Jim Slaughter, a Greensboro attorney and one of the country’s only certified professional parliamentarian teachers and professional registered parliamentarian, said it is not uncommon for boards to have a number of rules of procedure not bound together in one concise document.

Some boards adopt existing procedures, such as Robert’s Rules, and follow them. The rules explain when a second to a motion is required, when interruptions are allowed, and what kind of motion requires a majority, full board or two-thirds vote.

Technically speaking, a two-thirds vote of the seven -member board of commissioners would require that five of the seven commissioners vote in favor of the motion.

Bullard argued that McKenzie’s motion was essentially suspending the current rules and under Robert’s rules of parliamentary procedure, would require a two-thirds vote.

“It’s kind of difficult to answer when you don’t have rules written down,” Bell said.

McKenzie made a motion to limit topics of discussion to agenda items at a previous meeting, and board members Bill Memory, Lynwood Norris and Sammie Jacobs agreed they wanted to know what was going to be brought up at a meeting in advance.

Commissioners James Prevatte, Ricky Bullard and Ronald Gore see the measure as a tactic to keep them quiet at public meetings.

Prevatte accused McKenzie of making the motion because of McKenzie’s displeasure with a recent vote to redraw the county commissioner districts. District lines were not adjusted in 2000. using then-current census data. Some districts may differ as much as 10 to 20 percent in population and be in violation of federal guidelines.

McKenzie represents one of the minority districts that resulted from a 1990s federal lawsuit against the county.