Remote meetings and how attendance of council members is noted was a point of contention at Monday night’s Red Bud City Council meeting.
While the council has had some members attending meetings remotely for most of the pandemic, the ordinance dealing with remote meetings wasn’t approved until their September meeting (with two council members at that time remotely voting in favor). And how exactly the council members remotely attend, often due to technical difficulties, was not really questioned until now.
When taking roll for the evening, the council approved of allowing Alderman David Friess to attend remotely. Then, when considering the bills for the month, Alderman Kyle Donjon requested that the one in the amount of $1,867.50 for Ray Law Firm be removed for further discussion.
Donjon stated that he noticed he had been marked as not in attendance at the Nov. 16 committee meetings, however he had attended those meetings remotely. The listing of Donjon not being in attendance at the committee meetings was said to be stemming from City Attorney Paul Ray noting afterwards that per the remote meeting ordinance guidelines, Donjon was not properly in attendance and thus should not get paid for that meeting.
For more from the City Council meeting, please see this week’s print edition.