The El Paso City Council today elected city Rep. Emma Acosta as the new mayor pro-tempore and defeated several proposed changes in the council’s rules of order.
Those proposed changes included changing the Tuesday meeting time to from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. and reinstating a ban on outside electronic communications.
The council in 2007 abandoned the ban on outside communications approved two years before. The ban was imposed by the new council in 2005 to prevent potential violations of the Texas Open Meetings Act and to keep council members from receiving advice via e-mail on issues before the council.
It was dropped on the recommendation of city Rep. Beto O’Rourke, who contended that the rule was worthless and hypocritical because everyone was disobeying it.
Northeast city Rep. Carl Robinson proposed re-establishing the the rule, contending that council members should be paying attention at the regular meeting and not sending and receiving e-mail, text messages and cell phone calls.
“We need to be transparent in whatever we do,” Robinson said.
Robinson’s proposal was defeated with Mayor John Cook casting the tie-breaking no vote, siding with city Reps. Acosta, Rachel Quintana, Eddie Holguin and Steve Ortega. Voting with Robinson were city Reps. Ann Lilly, Susie Byrd and O’Rourke.
The council also voted 3-5 against Holguin’s proposal to allow the public to post items on the council agenda – a practice the council discontinued some years ago.
Voting for that change were Acosta, Quintana and Holguin.
The council also defeated Holguin’s motion to reconsider letting the public post items directly on council agendas by a 5-4 vote. Voting against the reconsideration were Lilly, Byrd, Ortega, O’Rourke and Cook.
Cook reminded the council, audience and viewing public that the public can go through the mayor’s office or a city representative to post an item on the agenda.
The council then reapproved the council’s existing rules of order on a 6-1 vote with Byrd voting no and Robinson abstaining without explanation.
