Latest in a series of posts on City Government 
“When a person becomes either a Council member or president of Council,
are there any guidelines to their being mentored or coached to their learning
the Roberts’ Rules of Order?”
Peg Church, January 6, 2020
Fair question from a reasonable resident.
And the answer is “No.”
Following Church’s lead, Gadfly would like to make a modest proposal:
that every Council member be required to attend a training seminar in Roberts’ Rules of Order every year.
- this new requirement could be coupled with the requirement of an annual ethics seminar
- this requirement would be for all council members, not just the officers
- though the Solicitor is usually thought of as the expert on Roberts’ Rules and the arbiter of Roberts’ Rules, knowledge of the rules empowers each council person
- of special emphasis in such a seminar would be the deportment of all members of a meeting
- such a seminar could usefully include examples of proper and improper meeting behavior
- one can even imagine members of the public interested in such a seminar
to be continued . . .
