Board of Aldermen 12-28-2021 Page 32
MOTION BY ALDERWOMAN LU TO REMOVE FROM THE TABLE O-21-082, BY ROLL CALL
A viva voce roll call was taken which resulted as follows:
Yea: Alderman Clemons, Alderman Lopez, Alderman Tencza, Alderwoman Lu,
Alderman Jette, Alderman Schmidt, Alderman Laws, Alderman Cleaver,
Alderman Wilshire 9
Nay: Alderman O’Brien, Alderman Klee, Alderwoman Kelly, Alderman Dowd,
Alderman Caron, Alderwoman Harriott-Gathright 6
MOTION CARRIED
MOTION BY ALDERWOMAN LU FOR FINAL PASSAGE OF O-21-082, BY ROLL CALL
ON THE QUESTION
Alderwoman Lu
Thank you. We all received a correspondence from Miss Graham on this and | understand that this arrangement that we
had has become more work than is feasible, particularly as we lost, | believe, a part-time staff member in the Legislative
office. | I'm hoping that all of you had a chance to take a look and see what it was that Miss Graham was doing as a result
of the meeting that we had for 12 months.
As you can see if you look at any piece of legislation during that time, it was easy to go to the legislation and then find out
where to look for any of the background on the discussions. | can't tell you how difficult it was for me when we were
discussing the Charter change and when | was very - when my question about the need to declare it necessary was told
that it had to be done immediately. It took me hours to look at other Charter changes. It's not easy because these
Charter changes - this legislation you only know when they passed. You don't know when they were introduced. Some of
them are introduced eight months before. This is really, really valuable. It's valuable for a resident who cares about, you
know, the history of the legislation or the legislation itself. It's easy for us because we have a system and assistant who
helps with our research but it's not easy for anyone else.
| implore Mayor Donchess to fully staff the legislative office, so that this could continue. It was only by looking back at
prior legislation and being able to identify, which was time consuming, the minutes that | had to go to that | learned that in
fact, it had been very routine not to declare it necessarily before committee. So | think in the interest of more clarity and
everyone in our city being able to have access to the research tools that we have, | hope that if you don't support this
today, that in next term you do what you can to ensure that we get fully staffed so that this can be done because | think it
makes a huge difference. | don't know if anyone took a look at it but | just want to, you know, implore the Mayor to fully
staff that office and that you see the benefit of this method and if necessary, put it into legislation, because | thought it was
going to be done, you know, going forward and unfortunately wasn't. Thank you.
President Wilshire
For the record, the Mayor is not the one that staffs the legislative office. That's me.
Alderwoman Lu
So | implore you.
Alderman Lopez
| just take this opportunity to invite the public to spread the word that we're looking for an Aldermanic Assistant. In talking
to Ms. Graham in the past, there is not exactly an abundance of applicants and it's very important work. So someone
who's looking for an opportunity to do some real good and is very interested in transparency, accountability, and
translating those minutes from verbal to written, this is an opportunity.
Alderman Clemons
Thank you, Madam President. So first off, |, | respect the work of our Legislative Assistant and | believe it was a joint
communication to with the City Clerk and | respect both of them immensely and I'll get to that in a moment, but | just
