Village of Indiantown

COUNCIL MEETING APRIL 25, 2024

Most of our boards in Martin County use some version of Roberts Rules to conduct their meetings. By having a set of rules to follow, the council can maintain a semblance of order.

Because in the end, it is about making sure the majority’s idea is being correctly interpreted and followed. Indiantown doesn’t really follow a clear path in this regard. Robert Rules is intended to make sure there is no ambiguity about what the motion maker meant, and the council voted on when a motion is in front of the governing body.

To make a motion, the member must first be recognized by the chair. In Indiantown’s case, a simple “Madame Mayor” and her nod of recognition would suffice. Then the recognized council member would state his motion as simply as saying, “I move that we accept staff’s recommendation for approval.” Or “I move we recommend approval of the project with staff’s recommendation and the following condition of ‘a, b, c’.”

Then the chair calls for a second. The chair restates the motion to make sure all understand and then calls for a vote by either a roll call or an all-in-favor.

By a board member simply saying only the word “motion,” there is no duly constituted action to vote on. If it isn’t clearly addressed, then how will anyone know the intentions of the council in a week, a month, or 20 years from now? It is the responsibility of the chair to accept nothing less than a fully worded motion. The simple utterance of the word “motion” as a substitute is not enough.

Mayor Gibbs-Thomas hopes to be elected a county commissioner come November. She needs to act as if she is now in the big leagues and chairing the county commission. Manager Taryn Kryzda was the county administrator for a long time and knows better than to accept what is going on in meetings. The village clerk should be challenging that she cannot record the word “motion” when a council member says that and nothing else. As the chief legal advisor, the village attorney is not advising the council adequately on how they should conduct business.

No staff member likes to tell an elected official that they are doing something incorrectly. To some, this may seem like a small matter. At some point, the way motions are currently being made will result in the public believing something else was agreed to. The council needs to act more responsibly.

Guyton Stone resigned more than 6 months before the next election. Here is what the charter states:

Filling of vacancies.

I haven’t heard anything.

The sheriff’s deputy in charge of community affairs spoke to the council about the problems the department sees regarding special events. He wanted the council members to know that it was not Indiantown people but those from outside that had caused the problems in the past. They “piggyback” on the event and have a sub event. The later it becomes, the more outsiders there are and the greater the possibility of the event being hijacked.

Later in the agenda, there were items concerning special events. Currently, the council must approve them. A new ordinance would allow the village manager to do so. Attorney Vose wants to reduce the deadline that a special event permit needs to be submitted to the village offices to 30 days from a minimum of 60 days now.

There was a lengthy discussion on aspects of how to change the ordinance. Council Member Dipaolo wants to make sure a permit is not needed if it takes place on private land. Then the example of a concert came up like the Okeechobee Music Festival with thousands of people.

He will bring the revised ordinance back for further discussion.

There is a “trust fund” that the village inherited from the county set up by Co-Gen which was eventually sold to FPL. It was to disburse the proceeds from interest on the $1 million that constitutes the trust fund. There are 7 members of the committee…4 from the public, 2 from FPL and a council member representative.

It hasn’t met in several years because there wasn’t enough to disburse. It now has over $50,000 that can be distributed. However, except for one member of the public, there doesn’t seem to be any interest in being on the committee. The manager wanted to do it internally, and then the council would have the final word.

The council felt that there should be further attempts to solicit public participation. The staff will continue to find new committee members.