Can the Mayor Pro Tem Vote?

The City Council continued to quibble over procedures during its meeting Monday night.

With Mayor Mark Fraser away on vacation, councilor Rick Judkins (Ward 5), the mayor pro-tem, served as the presiding officer in his place. When the council voted to reject the police contract, Judkins voted, joining councilors Bob Luther (Ward 2), Fred Toll (Ward 3) and Armand Bolduc (Ward 6) in the majority. Councilors Jim Cowan (Ward 4) and Judy Krahulec (Ward 1) dissented.

Cowan questioned whether Judkins, serving as mayor pro-tem, was entitled to vote other than to break a tie. "I have a letter that says I can vote," Judkins claimed, with support from City Manager Eileen Cabanel.

Cabanel said yesterday that the City Charter authorizes the mayor pro-tem to vote. Article III, Sect. 3:01, after explaining that the council must choose one of its members as mayor pro-tem to serve in the mayor's absence, continues: "the mayor pro-tem shall at all times retain his authority to vote as his a ward councilor."

"I have a letter too," Cowan said yesterday, brandishing a letter from Walter Mitchell, the city attorney, to Marie Bradley, administrative assistant to the city manager, dated April 9, 2003, which referred to the "procedure for mayor pro tem."

Mitchell wrote: "In the absence of the Mayor, the Mayor Pro Tem serves as the presiding officer for the council meeting. While fulfilling that function, the Mayor Pro Tem has no greater and no less authority than the Mayor would have when he is presiding. If the practice of the council has been that the presiding officer does not make motions, and does not vote in the absence of a tie, then I urge that those practices continue to be followed until the council can consider, in a more general context, whether those practices should be changed."

Mitchell was not available to comment on the apparent discrepancy between his opinion and the charter.

Cowan acknowledged that the language of the charter "seems pretty clear," but "it's still ambiguous to me, still unresolved as far as I'm concerned. He's not a councilor when he sits as mayor pro-tem," he said. "That's the ambiguity." He suggested that perhaps the charter should be revised to make it clear that "you do not do anything as mayor pro-tem that the mayor as the presiding officer cannot do."