Mayor takes aim at restoring order and discipline to council meetings

The cover sheet for Monday evening’s (Aug. 10) Front Royal Town Council meeting contains an addition in BOLD text under item number 5, “Petitions and/or Correspondence from the Public”.

Referencing Robert’s Rules of Order by which many municipalities including the Town, conduct meetings, is printed: “Public speakers and Council Members must use the same civility, decorum, orderly behavior, relevancy of comments to subject at hand, and appropriate language in addressing Town Council as they would in addressing a Judge in a Court of Law. No profanity, vulgar, or sexist language, or irrelevant commentary, is allowed.”

It is followed by a notation that “Further Details found page 2 of this agenda.” Page two in its entirety elaborates with 6 bullet points on the guidelines referenced on the agenda cover sheet.

Mayor Tewalt has sought legal clarification on the rules of order governing tone and topic of public, member, and staff comments during town council meetings. Royal Examiner Photos/Roger Bianchini

Those points include acknowledgment of the mayor as presiding officer of council meetings, with authority to enforce the rules of behavior on both the public and council members; further noting that council members must address the mayor before speaking and confine their subsequent remarks “to the question before the body” avoiding “all personal or indecorous language.”

Bullet point 4 begins, “There can be no personal attacks,” adding that, “A speaker can condemn the nature or likely consequences of a proposed measure in strong terms, but under no circumstances can he attack or question the personalities or the motives of another member. The measure, but not the man, is the subject of debate.”

The thin political line

That’s drawing a very fine line, I thought, because often isn’t the motive of “the man”, the source of the measure at hand, as one might argue was the case in Interim Town Manager Matt Tederick turning his July 27th report on town business into a personal attack on Royal Examiner publisher and mayoral candidate Mike McCool? It was a report that essentially turned the manager’s report and council meeting into a perhaps subtle Chris Holloway mayoral campaign rally. And it was a “rally” that a council majority of fellow Tederick and Holloway County Republican Committee members, save Vice-Mayor Sealock, and even the one (Thompson) who isn’t, seemed perfectly happy to join, in attacking Mayor Tewalt’s efforts to stymie the political tone Tederick’s report and the meeting had taken on.

It appears while the staff is not specifically mentioned in the referenced Roberts Rules of Order, the mayor would be the presiding authority to control staff behavior in the same regard as public and council members.

However, bullet point 6 does elaborate, “Governmental bodies may enforce policies against personal attacks … so long as they do not use the personal attack policy as a pretext to squelch a particular substantive viewpoint.”

Elsewhere, bullet point 6 adds that “Federal court decisions have established” that to ensure the efficient conduct of governmental business and “to maximize citizen participation in the discussion” that “public policy” in this regard “override the speaker’s First Amendment rights of free speech.”

Well, this will be a fun one to see the enforcement-of debate in the likely not too distant future.

I found myself wondering at the impetus for this precautionary note on public and council behavior. Was it made in anticipation of a McCool reply to what had been said about him by Tederick on July 27, and how council had jumped on board with, as previously reported in the above-referenced story, that unfounded personal attack?

Will he want to respond to what was said about him by the interim town manager at the July 27th meeting? – Be polite, Mike.

Or perhaps was the mayor trying to head off a “Part 2” of any further in-house politicization of coming meetings?

I called Mayor Eugene Tewalt over the weekend to shed some light on the addition of the Roberts Rules of Order guidelines on public and council member behavior to Monday’s agenda.

“After the ruckus at the last meeting I asked Matt and the town attorney to put something together for me to read before the public comments,” the mayor explained.

I noticed the referenced Roberts Rules focus on public and council member behavior, but doesn’t reference staff, I told the mayor. So, would you as the meeting’s presiding officer, make the judgment call on staff behavior in this regard, I asked Mayor Tewalt.

The mayor replied that that was his belief, but he would check with Town Attorney Doug Napier for further elaboration on the staff adhering to the same behavioral standards as applied to the public and council members.

Town Attorney Doug Napier worked with Interim Town Manager Tederick in responding to Mayor Tewalt’s request for written guidelines on meeting conduct and behavior.

Stay tuned for the next thrilling episode of “As the Council Turns” in the coming Royal Examiner video and report on Monday’s meeting, as well as work session discussion of the 2nd Amendment Resolution before council seeking a commitment the Town will not follow the State General Assembly in limiting the carrying of firearms into governmental buildings, spaces, office and meeting rooms.

Mayor, council erupt over politicized interim town manager’s report