HUMBOLDT — Following a wide-ranging debate, the Humboldt City Council rejected a proposal to reshape council committees into mayoral committees. The proposed committees would have been open to non-council members and replaced existing council committees that discuss items such as ordinances and public safety.
Council member Sam Murrow explained that switch could potentially shut council members out of vital information gathering discussions.
“I don’t want council members involved in daily operations, but we do need to be involved in a number of issues that may come before us,” Murrow said.
Council member Vada Aikins agreed, noting that last year’s appointments of two non-council members — Jan Coykendall and Mike Saucedo — to the Parks and Recreation Committee set a bad precedent.
“We should have caught it then, but it slipped by,” Aikins told the Register this morning.
Saucedo has since moved out of the area and resigned from the committee. The mayor again hoped to appoint Coykendall to another one year term.
CITY Administrator Larry Tucker said mayoral committees were not designed to shut out the council, but rather to involve the public in discussions that would then come before the council. The committees — both those exclusive to council members and those with citizen members — are designed to be advisory to the council and the mayor, Tucker told the Register this morning.
“The Kansas League of Municipalities allows a lot of discretion in appointing members to committees,” Tucker said.
All committee members, be they council or not, must be appointed by the mayor.
No committee had more than two members so as not to conflict with open meeting law notification requirements, Tucker explained.
In an effort to reduce the current number of committees — there are nine, Tucker said — Mayor Bob Sharp suggested consolidating them into four larger groups.
Tucker said changes in laws governing open meetings would allow for a greater number to gather. “It’s now a majority of a majority,” he noted, which for Humboldt, with an eight member council, means up to three council people can meet to discuss city business without public notification.
The proposed committees, with one exception, consist entirely of council members, council member Dan Walburn noted, and the city could adopt an ordinance mandating that council members remain a part of the committees.
“This really is no big deal,” he said.
Murrow was unconvinced.
“I have seen enough local politics to see what can happen when you start playing with” the existing structure, he said.
IN THE END, council members voted 6-1, Walburn opposed, to summarily reject the mayoral appointments.
The rejection leaves in place last year’s committees.
The streets committee has four members, Tucker said, two city staff, a council member and the mayor. The parks and recreation committee has just one non council member, Coykendall. And the swimming pool committee is made up of one council member, he noted.
