At the July 5 REGULAR council meeting Scherrer Construction gave an update on the progress of the new REC center. Following their presentation I asked, “what is your current anticipated completion date?” Answer – “end of January 2018” (January 31, 2018). I then asked, “is the project currently on-budget?” Answer – “yes”. I will ask the same questions again next month. Beyond this, the regular July 5 meeting was fairly uneventful (although I raised an eyebrow at spending an additional-&-unbudgeted $90k on a truck—that one caught me by surprise, so shame on me. I apologize).

A special meeting followed the regular meeting. The purpose of this July 5 SPECIAL meeting was to resume the June 12 discussion on Resolution 18-2017 regarding the proposed Back Forty mine. In the end, two resolutions were passed on July 5. I feel that this July 5 meeting was personally & professionally unpleasant, particularly in light of how rules were or were not followed. I will attempt to refrain from venting my feelings about this. Here is a recap of relevant events…if you don’t so much care about these particulars (they are not “productive”—they just detail what I perceive to have happened), then go ahead and skip to the paragraph after #8 below.

  1. On June 12 a special council meeting was held to discuss proposed Resolution 18-2017. A copy of that resolution is available here  https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B2gzvflVdaq1UzJIbFpvVERvTkE/view
    Please note that this proposed resolution clearly states that the “City of Marinette Common Council strongly oppose Aquila’s Back Forty metallic sulfide mine and urges the denial of permits required for the Back Forty Project”.
  2. A motion was made to table Resolution 18-2017. This motion passed 5-4 (I voted against tabling the resolution as I was prepared to vote in favor of the proposed resolution). The motion to table the resolution was PROCEDURALLY INCORRECT as special meeting items cannot be tabled. A procedurally correct motion might have been to postpone consideration . . . a minor nuance and one that I see no reason to get too upset about.
  3. The minutes of the June 12 meeting, as unanimously approved by the Common Council, clearly state that the council voted to “table any action on Resolution 18-2017 to gather more information and bring the agenda item back to the Common Council”. A copy of this is available here  http://marinette.wi.us/images/AGENDA_MINUTES/Common_Coucil/2017/Common_Council_Meeting_minutes_2017-06-12special.pdf
  4. Between the June 12 Special Council Meeting and the July 5 Special Council Meeting, proposed Resolution 18-2017 was re-written in its entirety. I’d like to include a link, but unfortunately the City has not shared this agenda, with the re-written 18-2017, online (the folks at City Hall tell me that there are “website issues” – seems plausible to me – bad timing though as the July 5 meeting notice never appeared online either). This re-writing of the Resolution was done by somebody, somebodies, or some buddies outside of Council EVEN THOUGH the item had been “tabled”, with no action to be taken until brought back to council. I do not know who re-wrote the resolution. This re-writing undertaken by unknown persons in an unknown location (unknown to me, anyway) is PROCEDURALLY INCORRECT (if not illegal?—I’m not a lawyer; I don’t know). I pointed this out at the July 5 special meeting, but my concerns were not acted upon.
  5. The agenda for the July 5 special meeting included a copy of the new, completely re-written Resolution 18-2017. No public comment was allowed even though the resolution had been completely re-written. The new resolution was, in my opinion, not as ‘strong’ as the original Resolution 18-2017; all “WHEREAS” statements were condensed into a single statement indicating that the environmental risk does not offset the potential economic benefit to the City. Because of this, the City of Marinette “does not support” the proposed mine. Compare this with the earlier version of the resolution that stated “strongly oppose”. To put this in perspective, consider a hypothetical situation in which Bob says, “I do not support bad government” … and Janet says, “I strongly oppose bad government”. Perhaps this is just nuance.
  6. At the July 5 meeting a motion was made to adopt the new, ‘less strong’ (in my opinion) Resolution 18-2017. Before being put to a vote, Alderperson Keller made a motion to amend the resolution with some language from the old-Resolution 18-2017, in particular to acknowledge that the mine will “result in the irreversible loss of significant cultural resources of the Menominee Tribe of Indians of Wisconsin, including Native American gravesites and other areas of historical significance”. I seconded this amendment. Rather than go to a vote (as is required under Robert’s Rules of Order), the amendment was given to the alder who made the original motion to approve new-Resolution 18-2017. That alder refused to incorporate this language as a friendly amendment. No vote was taken on this amendment. This was PROCEDURALLY INCORRECT as the motion for amendment should have been voted upon before a vote on the main motion.
  7. A vote on new-Resolution 18-2017 followed. The order of the vote is of some interest. Two alders voted ‘no’ (presumably on the grounds that the new resolution lacked stronger language, namely the afore-mentioned cultural resources stuff). By the time the vote got to me, the count was at 4-yay, 2-nay, with only me and Alder Kowalski yet to vote (we were voting in order of Ward number—I represent Ward 8, Kowalski is your alderperson-at-large [voting at #9], and Ward 7’s alder was absent). I voted in favor of the new-Resolution 18-2017, largely because it was already clear that the resolution would pass (and, as an aside, I didn’t want to vote AGAINST any resolution that opposes or “does-not-support” the proposed mine).
  8. Immediately upon passing new-Resolution 18-2017 (by a vote of 6-2, with me voting in favor), I made a motion to amend the recently passed Resolution 18-2017 to include language on the significant cultural resources. Alderperson Keller seconded this motion. This was PROCEDURALLY CORRECT – – – emphasis on CORRECT! As a member of council who voted IN FAVOR of the resolution, it was my right to make a motion to amend the already passed resolution. This motion to amend passed by a vote of 6-2 (the two who voted against new-Resolution 18-2017 voted in favor of this amendment). Two alders voted against this amendment on the grounds that this motion – this procedurally correct motion – was ‘procedurally incorrect’ (or inappropriate, if you prefer). As noted above, I will refrain from offering my feelings on this. Nonetheless the questions are clear – “where were these supposed procedural ethics when the old resolution was improperly tabled?…when the resolution was improperly re-written while tabled?…when the motion with second to amend was improperly disregarded?…and why now when a procedurally CORRECT motion has been presented?” And, to go off-topic ever so slightly, why did these same two ‘procedure-minded’ alders feel it necessary to say that my motion was ‘crazy’, insisting that ‘we all knew what we were voting on’. Indeed, I knew exactly what I was voting for when I voted in favor of new-Resolution 18-2017…and I knew exactly what I was doing when I moved to amend that recently passed resolution. …crazy like a fox. …or just lucky.

I’ll wrap this up. The City of Marinette passed a resolution of “does not support” (versus “strongly oppose”) the proposed Back Forty mine based on environmental risk and economic reward. Adding language about significant cultural resources, which is not covered by economics or environmental health, makes the City of Marinette’s resolution stronger, regardless of how any individual (you, me, somebody else) may feel about the significance of those cultural resources. My hope is that this resolution, with the stronger language acknowledging significant cultural resources, will be considered together with the other, stronger resolutions from Marinette County, Brown County, and potentially other counties (Door & Oconto), along with other municipalities (Peshtigo & others). This is a good thing and I strongly suspect that the resolutions will be included in a court battle at some point in the future. On a brighter note, the July 5 special council meeting included proposed Resolution 19-2017, which urges Wisconsin state representatives to insert the State of Wisconsin in the approval process for projects like the proposed Back Forty mine. This resolution may well have more impact than the “does not support” resolution, as it gives more justification to our state representatives to take up active involvement on this issue. This resolution had never been presented to Council prior to the July 5 meeting agenda, and no public comment was allowed on this never-before-seen resolution (is this procedurally correct? I ask because I do not know). Resolution 19-2017 passed by a vote of 8-0.

 
Now to focus on other matters, like railroad crossings, yard waste pick-up, the cemetery chapel, bird poop, making friends through procedural debate (wait…not that), etc, etc, etc.  Remember, this is your city government — if you see room for improvement, then please take up the challenge of making those improvements a reality.