My Observations of the August 23 Special Meeting

I apologize for not getting this article out sooner but I had a Bible study and didn’t get it done until afterwards.  And no, my Bible study did not include any “choir practice”!

On Monday, August 23, 2010, the Little Rock Police Pension Board held a “Special Meeting,” which is, by the way, open to the general public (for Jim McDaniel), at 4 pm to take up the issue of the appeal before the PRB of our pension fund’s application for Guarantee Fund assistance necessitated after our Chairman, Bruce Moore, had this item removed from the PRB agenda.  While the elected members of the police pension board all thought the issue had been decided in the previous Special Meeting, apparently, Bruce Moore had a different view of this matter.

Immediately after the meeting was called to order, I made a motion “that this Board appoint Lee Harrod and myself as an Executive Committee of this Board, to be called the ‘The Guarantee Fund Executive Committee,’ as authorized under Robert’s Rules of Order on page 468, having the full authority to handle any and all matters concerning our application to the PRB for assistance from the Guarantee Fund including, but not limited to, the scheduling of any appeals or other actions before the PRB concerning this issue, with the exception of making any expenditure of funds from this Board, and requiring us to report at each regular meeting of this Board on our progress in obtaining Guarantee Fund assistance.”

Mr. Harrod seconded the motion and Mr. Moore attempted to enter into debate on the issue; however, his effort was blocked by my “Point of Order” that the Chairman was not allowed to participate in the debate of this issue under Robert’s Rules of Order because he is not a member of our society.  Thus, according to the Robert’s Rules of Order, he should have nothing to say on the merits of pending questions and, if the Board should wish to hear his comments, he must relinquish the chair to another member of the Board.

This raised considerable discussion between Mr. Moore and the other members of the Board and recriminations for Mr. Moore’s action of having the pending appeal of our Guarantee Funding application removed from the PRB agenda without first obtaining the Board’s permission.  Mr. Hensley discussed the facts and circumstances concerning the actions of Mr. Moore and I passed out a series of emails between Mr. David Clark, Executive Director of the PRB, and Mr. Moore that I had obtained from the PRB detailing exactly what had transpired in that exchange.  However, because there was a motion made and seconded with no further discussion, that motion was put to a vote and was passed by a unanimous vote of the Board.

The matter of my “Point of Order” then resumed, containing more heated discussion, and was finally resolved after Mr. Moore apologized to the members of the Board for his apparent error in “interpretation” of the Board’s intentions during the previous Special Meeting that prompting me to withdraw my “Point of Order,” at the request of Don Wood, because it was now moot anyway after the passage of the previous motion by our Board.

The meeting was later adjourned, after some minor discussion of the Board’s procedures used during the upcoming RFQ process.

After the meeting, I immediately contacted Mr. David Clark and had our appeal placed back on the PRB agenda for there September meeting and Mr. Clark sent out an amended Agenda, via email, to the PRB members.  I must admit, I had not realized the PRB agenda could be so quickly and efficiently amended, but then, apparently, neither did Farris who is a PRB member.

Now, if this isn’t an article with a “positive connotation” for our membership, then, I simply have no understanding of the concept!

Read the emails between Mr. Moore and David Clark HERE.

Listen to the entire audio of this meeting below.  While the entire audio is approximately 50 minutes in length, the substantive part of this audio, discussed in the above article, is only 37 minutes in length.