DURHAM -- With a light agenda for its last regular meeting of 2009, the City Council was zipping through business Monday night until it hit a point of order.
A motion failed. Problem was, the item at issue was to appropriate money for a job already close to done.
Oops.
The item was a contract amendment for sprucing up Main Street through the West Village area near Brightleaf Square.
Council members Diane Catotti and Mike Woodard had voted no on the original contract because it included $1 million to bury power lines. They thought the money could be better used otherwise. The contract had passed anyway.
When the amendment came up Monday night, Catotti and Woodard announced they would be voting no again, for the sake of consistency.
The rub came when Mayor Pro Tem Cora Cole-McFadden asked whether developer Tom Niemann had followed through on a promise to include space for young people in the West Village redevelopment. No one had an answer.
So Cole-McFadden voted no to the amendment, along with Woodard and Catotti. Mayor Bill Bell and council members Farad Ali and Howard Clement voted yes. Council member Eugene Brown was absent Monday night.
According to City Council procedure, the 3-3 tie meant the contract amendment failed.
"I assumed the item would pass," Catotti said.
"We need Eugene Brown," Ali said.
"Can we call him at home?" Clement asked.
"The work is just about complete," City Manager Tom Bonfield said.
"Would it be possible to withdraw the voting?" Catotti asked.
City Attorney Patrick Baker said he hadn't brought his manual of procedure.
Woodard, after consulting his memory for Robert's Rules of Order, moved to reconsider.
The next vote was unanimous - put the whole thing off until next month.
Meeting adjourned.
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