A Taneytown city councilman accused the mayor of violating the law by putting off a vote on a resolution proclaiming illegal immigrants would be unwelcome in the town.
City Councilman Paul Chamberlain Jr. said Mayor Jim McCarron refused to give council members ample time to discuss his resolution, which says the town would do everything legally possible to keep illegals out.
The resolution was to be discussed and voted on at Monday?s council meeting, but McCarron pushed it back a month.
“If you look at the agenda on Wednesday night, he excluded it,” Chamberlain said. “That is not legal.”
The city clerk is supposed to set the agenda in Taneytown, and Chamberlain carried to the meeting a thick binder of the town codes to prove his point.
McCarron, however, said his colleague was blowing everything out of proportion because the council governing the town of about 5,500 residents always has held informal meetings.
“Traditionally, the mayor sets the agenda,” McCarron said.
The mayor said the resolution was still discussed at last Wednesday?s work session for at least a half hour, and he gave council members a copy of the resolution before the meeting.
“It took up most of the meeting; it monopolized everything,” McCarron said. “It took time away from real city business.”
In urging a stricter adherence to the town?s codes, Chamberlain referred to Robert?s Rules of Order, a rigid set of parliamentary laws. Town Manager James Schumacher said the rules are so complex he isn?t versed on them, and most governments do not follow them strictly.
“If we?re going to be throwing out Robert?s Rules, I think we need to listen to them completely and not randomly,” Councilman Henry Heine Jr. said. “For many, many years, we?ve been very informal, and now all of a sudden, we pull them out whenever it?s convenient. I don?t think that?s right.”
