By Khalida Sarwari
Any city commissioner with three unexcused absences in one year will be removed from his or her position. That’s the message the Saratoga City Council is sending with its adoption of a new ordinance.
City officials indicated the proposal was prompted by an absenteeism problem in the past on the council and various commissions. The ordinance aims to modify attendance requirements pertaining to city commissions in the Saratoga City Code.
“I think what we have now is a provision that hopefully makes it more clear that we expect our commissioners to have attendance that is quite good and that they serve to serve the community and as such they serve the council,” said councilman Manny Cappello.
The council began discussing the attendance policy for city commissioners on Sept. 4 and subsequently on Oct. 16 at Cappello’s request. The existing city code states that a commissioner who misses three consecutive regular meetings without permission of the chair–or in the case of the chair, the permission of the mayor–is automatically removed from the commission. The ordinance unanimously approved by the council on Nov. 20 removes “consecutive” and clarifies that removal of a commissioner would occur upon missing three regular meetings in a one-year time period.
Once removed, the commissioner’s position would become vacant and filled unless the vacancy is excused by the council. A commissioner whose position has become vacant can request the city council to excuse the vacancy.
The only exception to the rule would be the youth commission, whose attendance policy stipulates the automatic removal of members if they miss two meetings within a school year, unless the absence is excused by the council.
Leonard Almalech, a member of the planning commission, asked the council to reconsider amending the attendance ordinance, stating that the modification puts the chair “in a very awkward position of coming up with what is an excused absence.”
“I don’t think it is needed. It’s not warranted,” Almalech said. “There hasn’t been any input that we have received that there is an issue about attendance by commissioners and we were somewhat caught off-guard and quite honestly confused on why it is being proposed.”
The objective, Cappello explained, was to put in place a structure to define the criteria regarding attendance that applicants are informed about during the selection process.
“All I’m trying to do with this piece is to make it consistent with what we’ve been talking about,” Cappello said. “We put the expectation in place where, when our candidates come before us, we tell them what we expect, but yet our policy doesn’t support that. That’s all I’m trying to do–put some consistency in place.”
A second reading of the ordinance is scheduled for Dec. 4.
Ordinance could lead to removal of absent city commissioners
