[RP TownTalk] Special Legislative Meeting MONDAY (November 28, 2005) (dat...

[Alan K. Thompson]

Dear Audrey,

Alan here, speaking for myself.

In 2001, an amendment was passed to the charter requiring more than
50% of the vote for winning an election; if no one received more than
50%, there would be a runoff.  A lot of the language of the amendment
was borrowed from the "in case of a tie" component already in the
charter, including (unfortunately) the schedule for the runoff.  The
language describing setting the schedule currently says "the runoff
will be held on the fourth Monday in May."  This obviously would not
make sense for this special election -- if none of the candidates
receives more than 50% of the vote, waiting  more than five months
would be silly.  There is a moderately involved reading of the charter
that would allow the council to schedule a runoff before May, but it
seems better to amend the "fourth Monday in May" language to reflect
the intent -- a quick runoff to have the seat filled as soon as
practical.  Anyone wishing to look at the charter can see it at
<http://www.ci.riverdale-park.md.us/AboutRiverdalePark/LawsOfTown/Charter.pdf>,
Section 511, page 20 (as printed on the page) or page 25 (counting
from the beginning of the document).

Now to your questions:

The issue was noted in a review of the runoff section of the charter
because of the ward 1 special election.

The public is most definitely invited to the special legislative session.

As required by the charter (Section 1008), the amendment will be
introduced, and (I hope) discussed.  It can then be passed (or not) at
the regular legislative meeting the following week, after the delay
required by the charter.

As I mentioned above, the original legislation was approved by the
council in 2001, but no one noticed that the schedule was wrong for a
special election.

It is an emergency because if the vote in the special election does
not deliver a decisive victory to a candidate, dealing with the runoff
schedule will be a legal mess.  I *hope* that all of the candidates
see that this is a well-motivated attempt to avoid a problem and will
weigh in on the exact language they would like to see.

Regards,

Alan

On 11/25/05, ABragg7393 at aol.com <ABragg7393 at aol.com> wrote:
> Is this emergency amendment because of the ward 1 election coming up?  Is
> the public invited to the "special" part of the meeting?  Is this to pass
> the amendment or just discuss it?  Did this ever come up before the council
> in the past?  why is it such an emergency?  thanks.
>
>  Audrey