ToadBook

AGENDAS and MEETINGS – GET EDUCATED

Let’s Play a Game. Ask yourself these questions and see if you are correct.

And more importantly – ask yourself these questions and see if the Council is behaving correctly. The Village ordinances that govern these answers are included.

**Hint* Refer to previous education about separate powers.*

Q. Who Sets the Agenda in Bosque Farms for Council meetings?

A. The Clerk Administrator along with the Mayor. 2-2-2 A. 4. All reports, communications, ordinances, resolutions, contracts, documents, or other matters to be submitted to the governing body shall be delivered to the Clerk at least nine days prior to each meeting, whereupon the Clerk shall immediately arrange a list of such matters according to the order of business.

Q. Can the Council request to have something on the agenda?

A. Yes. See above. Also 2-2-2 A. 4. Additional items may be added to the agenda by majority consent of the members of the governing body.

KNOW THIS It does not say they MUST be added prior to the meeting. The idea of having a rolling quorum being illegal is still relevant. This means the Council has to be VERY CAREFUL how they "demand" items be on the agenda (their words!)

Q. Is there a set order to the agenda? A. Yes. See 2-2-2 C.

Q. Who works with other governments? A. 2-6-4 D. Coordinates and/or serves as liaison to the public or other agencies in the development and implementation of special programs and projects as assigned by the Mayor. And 2-1-2 B. 3. The Mayor.

Q. What does the Mayor Pro-Tem Do? A. 2-1-3 NOTHING until the Mayor is unable to do his/her job.

KNOW THIS Insisting you be called Mayor Pro-Tem is just grandstanding.

KNOW THIS There is no Mayor Pro-Tem until there is a Mayor Pro-Tem.

Get Educated: This is a Latin phrase pro tempore, meaning for the temporary moment. So until you must stand in as Mayor, you are ONLY a Councilor. Period. Only when the mayor is unavailable are you Mayor Pro-Tem.

** **

When you do not understand WHY we separate powers then it's easy to overlook when people in power don't behave in the way they should.

New Mexico Constitution Art. III, § 1. Separation of powers Bosque Farms Ordinances U.S. Constitution.

The Supreme Court has said this in other rulings about Separating Powers. In reaching this result, the court posited that multi-headed bodies were favored in the government structure, and attributed this to the Framers’ wisdom:

The Framers recognized that, in the long term,
structural protections against abuse of power were critical to preserving liberty … Their solution to governmental power and its perils was simple: divide it.

In particular, according to the court:

The Framers viewed the legislative power as a special threat to individual liberty, so they divided that power to ensure that “differences of opinion” and the “jarring of parties” would “promote deliberation and circumspection” and “check excesses in the majority.”

But the court then went on to describe the executive branch as unique among the three branches:

By contrast, the Framers thought it necessary to secure the authority of the Executive so that he could carry out his unique responsibilities.

(Seila Law LLC v. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau) (Bold by me)

Constitution 101 Video.

https://constitutioncenter.org/education/videos/constitution-101-separation-of-powers

This is not a SMALL thing. Separating Powers - it's a Federal Constitution thing.

SEPARATING POWERS – GET EDUCATED

Are you educated yet?

• Mayor - Executive Branch. This include the Police, the employees in the front office, the Clerk Administrator and the Treasurer.
• Councilors - Legislative Branch.
• Judge - Judicial Branch. This include the court clerks.

Do you understand what is happening in the Council Chambers is all kinds of wrong?

KNOW THIS

What this means is that the Council can not act as a Mayor.

Councilors are NOT mayors.

Councilors do not have the right to fire or hire employees. They approve the hiring and firing and that itself is a budgetary issue (Do we have the money to hire someone? Can we handle any lawsuits that would happen if we fire someone? Will hiring this person cause future problems?)

They do not have the right to run the meetings. (State law, Village Ordinances and Federal Law covers this). They have the right to debate with decorum and to have their one vote.

Councilors do not have the right to agree to vote a certain way in public at other meetings so other communities can make decisions that impact the Village. (Ahem, cough cough Councilors)

Councilors are NOT allowed to boss employees around. So no requests 'come fill my pool with city water please'. No rolling down your window at a traffic stop and saying 'I know the police chief'.

Well we knew it would happen -

When we sat in council meetings and heard Councilor DeSmet go after the treasurer – we knew eventually the treasurer would be gone.

• The treasurer who thought about the bigger picture. 
• She was aware of the long term highs and lows of Gross Receipt Tax (GRT). 
• The treasurer who would look at the Village budget BEFORE just approving purchase orders – because that is her job. If there isn’t enough money in the budget – it doesn’t matter how much you want to spend – there isn’t money. 

The treasurer who could say GRT is going down and this budget won’t balance no matter how much you want to spend the money.

And when did we lose the treasurer? When did E. DeSmet and the other Councilors (Bruhn and Zamora) choose to put this on the agenda to get rid of the treasurer?

THE END OF THE YEAR and THE END OF THE MONTH and THE START OF THE NEW FISCAL YEAR and PAY ROLL.

SO? You might ask? Well -- the end of the year reports are due to the state. -- the end of the month reports are due to the state. -- New budgets are due to the state. -- Employees need to be paid. -- Bills need to be paid.

And all of this needs a treasurer – a trained treasurer.

If we don’t get those in on time there might be fines, the state might think we can’t manage our budget and come take over.

This does NOT sound like these councilors are thinking of what is best for the Village of Bosque Farms – it sounds like they are setting us up for failure.

Why?

Well in spite of the DO NOT REPLY ALL at the top of the email – this email addresses THREE other Councilors.

This is called a rolling quorum. It is in violation of the open meetings act.

In fact, if you have attended meetings with the Village Attorney – The one they hired to represent the Village and advice the Council on how to best run Village business – She said DO NOT INCLUDE ALL THE COUNCILORS on your emails.

(Maybe that is why they got rid of her? They didn't like what she was saying?)

All she got was push back by two new Councilors saying “well it’s ok, we just can’t make decisions” and again the Attorney said – BEST PRACTICE is to not do it.

And this email is an example of why--

First- J. Bruhn is transmitting to other councilors that he’s working to schedule a meeting he deems important. He’s telling them who he has invited and in many ways indicating how he wants them to vote.

In what way you ask? How? - why invite Peralta if they are terminating the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) unless you are interested in exploring options with them. - Why invited Valencia County unless you are interested in exploring options with them.

In other words this email can be read by other Councilors to say ‘Hold Firm, we will have a meeting and the ONLY time to do it is June 18 at 9am.’

This email can be read by other Councilors to say ‘I want to do something with Peralta and even though the vote will be public, I’m telling you how I’m going to vote”.