The more I thought about this the more serious the ramifications became. One of two things occurred here. Either there is an error in the minutes and Blair Johnson did not M/S or it is true and Blair Johnson did make the motion and seconded it. Either way in the interest in making our government better it should be reviewed if for no other reason than to avoid such pitfalls in the future.
If Blair Johnson did motion and second one has to wonder at the legality of such an act.
If Blair Johnson didn't make the motion and the second then would that make an even greater error? Would that mean that everyone present at the meeting where they approved the minutes were neglecting their duty?
At the meeting on April 2, 2008
(Click here to see page 1 of the minutes) Blair Johnson is recorded as making the motion and seconding it. At the next meeting on April 16, 2008 the minutes for April 2 was approved.
(Click here to see page 1 of the meeting on April 16) With the exception of Craig Randleman everyone was there at the meeting, including the same guests and staff. Wasn't anyone paying attention? At the City Council meetings the minutes are not read. They are given to the council-members and they vote on approving them. One would assume that the councilmen read them before they approve them. If we assume this is the procedure then that would mean that the board as well as the staff would have had copies of the minutes when they were approved. Didn't anyone read them? Is one to assume that 12 people didn't notice anything wrong? Attorney Bill Watson came in late but he still would have been given copies of the minutes. What else is he paid for but to check to see that things are done legally? Why didn't he say anything if they were wrong? Why didn't David Lang say anything if they were wrong?
Should we conclude that if 12 people saw nothing incorrect in the minutes that they were correct as written?
Another thing that troubles me about this vote is that it doesn't say it passed. What happened? Did the vote pass? According to the law all votes are to be kept track of. Do we assume that it didn't pass? How do we know? What kind of record keeping is this? If you look at page 2 of the minutes for the same meeting
(Click here to see those minutes on page 2) It states that Randleman moved and Herberg seconded to approve the monthly bills. Again it doesn't say it passed. Are we to then assume that they didn't pay their bills that month? It would seem possible that not putting passed in the minutes didn't mean that it didn't pass. It is possible that it just didn't get put in there.
The pattern of keeping minutes is not consistent. Sometimes it reads at the beginning of a paragraph "M/S/P" and give the names of the people. Sometimes it has the "motion by" and "seconded by" in the middle of a paragraph with no reference to passing while other times it says "passed unanimously." Other times, as in the minutes for May 7, 2008
(Click here to see page 2 of the May 7 meeting) in the paragraph where Blair Johnson's accounting contract was expanded to include billing, the Motion and second is in the middle of the paragraph in
bold print. Why is there no consistency in the EDA minutes?
It also makes one wonder where the $120,000 went? To "designated funds?" What funds? How does the EDA keep track of this money? Shouldn't the record show where the money went?