Order For Special Preliminary Municipal Election For District One City Councilor On April 5, 2022 And Special Municipal Election On May 3, 2022
Number 0248. Councilor Flynn offered the following bore for a special preliminary municipal election for District One City councilor on April five, 2022. In Special Municipal Election on May 30, 2022. Thank you. Thank you, Mr.. Thank you, Mr.. Clarke. At this time, I'm going to step aside as the as the as the President and allow Counselor Arroyo to to speak to speak to on this docket. Thank you, Mr. President. Mr. Clerk, would you please read Docket Zero to pour into the record? They really did it. I already did it in here. Let's look at that. In that case. The chair recognizes Counselor Flynn. Counselor for you on the floor. Thank you. Thank you, Counsel Arroyo. As you know, Counsel Edwards will be resigning for a city council seat on April 30th. So we need to have a special election to fill the seat for District one. I'm filing this order today so that we can formally call for a special preliminary election in special municipal election for District One, which will be on April 5th. In May 3rd, I'm going to ask for a suspension of the rules in passage of this order so that we can stop this process. Thank you, Mr. Clarke. Well. Thank you, Counselor Flynn. Would anyone else like to speak on the matter? Councilor Baker. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair. First, let me congratulate our good colleague, Lydia, for making it to the Senate. Good job. I'm just curious. And moving forward as a district council, this is something that always kind of weighs on us. You don't want to lead your district in a lurch looking for representation. Is this a pathway forward or is just just something available? Going from elected to elected, if someone were to go into like a bureaucratic job or to a private sector job, would would we be able to put out our resignation like the same way this happened? Or is this based on just going elected to elected? Can anybody answer that question? The chair recognizes, can somebody? Yes, it absolutely is, Councilor Baker. It's a form of resignation that is been set by precedent and confirmed by the Supreme Judicial Court. And the the case that set this was actually a senator who left for the private sector. And so she. And so the the case I made very clear, and that's why I use the language irrevocably resigned. That language is essentially saying you can resign effective this date and this body or anybody and and in the commonwealth, if they're going to be setting a special election, can basically act in advance of that resignation, saying we're going to go ahead and move this along. It is according to that case. And my reasoning, it's the most democratic option for us to allow for the democratic process to begin with, the election to start. But I leave before the end. The only requirement is I must leave before the election. Thank you. And one more one more question through the chair to to Lydia. Who was who was that senator that last you do recall? Was it a was it Boston? It was not a Boston senator. It was. I can get you the case law. It was. I can actually look it up right now. Well, Counselor Bork is well, she's asking her questions that I can. Get a taste. And just to be clear, this is this is a this is a model we can use in the future. Absolutely perfect. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Counselor Baker. And I know this counselor has her hand raised by Papa John's. Thank you so much, Councilor Arroyo. I just wanted to second the idea that this is a precedent going forward and I think a good one. In fact, when you read the case and I think it's Wyler, Robert Wyler, that's at least it's a case from before. But anyways, I'm sure Counselor Evans will provide it. Basically, one of the rationales here was in that case was actually that you get more democratic representation this way because it allows us to call the election, as the president is proposing, for the same time as we would if Counselor Edwards had resigned, effective now. But in that situation, her district would be utterly unrepresented for the three months. And so I think it's definitely in the interest of the people who voted for their elected representative to have someone representing their district for as long as possible. It's also obviously in this body's interest to have an odd number and to have a vote from every district where possible. And so I think I think this is one of those things that is not actually just, you know, convenient for the elected official in question, but actually gets us closer to having full democratic representation for the maximum amount of time. So I just wanted to say that I'm strongly in support of it for that reason, and I know that that was part of the rationale that the SJC said when they said that this was appropriate. They said, Yeah, actually people are getting more representation if you do it this way. And then the one other just note I wanted to enter and Mr. Clark, I don't know exactly how this works because it's sort of a strange case, but even though I know Councilor Flynn said that he was requesting suspension of passage on this , I know that I think counselor should just be aware that in the charter it actually says that the Council shall order an election a week after the notice was read. So this is kind of a funny thing where I actually think we'd be in violation of the charter if we push this by a week, as opposed to the sort of normal, the norm of a suspension and passage being exceptional. So I just wanted to flag for folks that that's the language in the charter under 15, a section 15. Thanks thanks so much to. Do we have any further discussion or anyone would like to speak on this? Thank you. Seeing no hands. Would anyone like to add their name? Mr. Clarke. Please add. Councilor Edwards. Councilor Murphy. Councilor Braden. Councilor. Councilor Lucy Jane. Councilor. Clarity. Councilor. We're out trying to. Councilor. Trying to find out is innocent and all the boxes moving. Councilor May here and in Baker and Councilor Baker there, we got all the boxes we were when people hit the in the hand and then. Please add my name as well and councilor Laura as well. I believe I got everybody if I did not say your name, project and race please, Kristie. And so with that, Councilor Flynn had to move for a suspension of the rules and passage of docket number 0248. Mr. Clarke, can you please do a roll call vote? Roll Call vote on docket 20248. Council Arroyo. Yes. Council Arroyo Yes. Council A Baker. Yes. Council A Baker yes. Council Abad. Yes. Council a block. Yes. Councilor Approved. Yes. Councilor Braden. Yes. Councilor Edwards. Yes. Councilor Edwards. Yes. Councilor Fernandez Anderson. Councilor Fernandes Sanderson. Will we turn back? Counsel Clarity? Yes, sir. And I know that Constellation was having some connectivity issues earlier in the session, and they may have come back to her. So we want to check with you on that. Thank you, sir. Thank you. Counsel of Clarity. Yes. Counsel Flynn. Yes. Counselor Flynn. Yes. Counsel Lara. Yes. Counsel. Yes. Counselor. Louisiana. Yes. Counsel Reason Yes. Counsel Let me hear. Yes. That's why I'm here. Yes. Counselor Murphy? Yes. Counselor Murphy. Yes. Counsel world. Yes. Counselor. Well. Yes. And Counselor Fernandez Anderson. Yes. And thank you, Councilor Flaherty. Councilor Fernandez Sanderson. Yes, Mr. President. Docket 0248 has received a unanimous vote. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Clarke. We're going on, too. We're going on to personnel orders. Mr. Clarke, please read docket 0249, please.