CRESTVIEW — The City Council tabled an effort to again revise its Rules of Procedure after a previously approved revisions established a process for delivering invocations before meetings.
The actual revision under consideration at Monday’s council meeting would redefine its regular second monthly meeting as a workshop.
However, with multiple area clergymen and faithful packing the council chamber, councilmen requested more opportunity to consider the rules and possible revisions.
The council’s current Rules of Procedure were adopted in 2013. A revision later that year described how special meetings are called.
The rules were further revised at the May 11 meeting, adding a section mandating procedures for selecting area clergy to present the invocation traditionally offered prior to each meeting.
Until then, council members, some of whom are leaders in their respective churches, occasionally offered the invocation.
However, city attorney Jerry Miller advised the council members to refrain from offering the prayer following a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that “under the establishment clause of the United States Constitution, a local government should not promote or advance any one belief, view or religion.”
WORKSHOPS
City Clerk Betsy Roy said the tweak proposed Monday would help solve scheduling difficulties that sometimes arose when trying to set a date for workshops.
“There’s always workshops,” Roy said. “We’re going to try to have a workshop instead of a second meeting so when they (council members) come to council, the work will be done.”
Workshops allow council members to discuss and debate proposals and projects in detail in a public setting without taking time from regular council business meetings.
Council members do not vote during workshops, but Council President Shannon Hayes may ask for the other members’ consensus on a question.
Roy said a business meeting during which city policy can be voted on can easily be added on workshop days.
“If we have to have a resolution, it will be done as a special meeting right before the workshop,” she said.
OFF TOPIC
Though Council President Shannon Hayes tried to focus discussion on the workshop revision on the agenda, speakers from the audience and council members kept returning to the invocation issue.
"This resolution has nothing to do with the invocation," Roy said. "The reason the invocation is in there is because it was voted on at the May 11 meeting."
Councilman JB Whitten moved to not approve the resolution, then Councilman Mickey Rytman moved to table Whitten’s motion, effectively killing discussion of the rules.
To revive the resolution, the matter will have to be placed on the agenda of a future council meeting, then voted off the table.
“At some time we have to discuss the invocation,” Whitten said. “I want to table it and give ourselves time to digest this.”
Mayor David Cadle told the council that at any time it may come back and revisit the controversial rule.
Email News Bulletin Staff Writer Brian Hughes, follow him on Twitter or call 850-682-6524.
This article originally appeared on Crestview News Bulletin: Crestview council procedural rules contested by clergy, supporters