Respect the gavel

Baker City Mayor Dennis Dorrah needs help.

Dorrah, who was elected to the largely ceremonial job by his fellow councilors in January, tried awfully hard to prevent the Council’s April 28 meeting from devolving into a shouting match.

He did pretty well, considering the circumstances.

But Dorrah would have done even better had everyone present held their tongue until Dorrah had exercised the authority given him by both the city charter and a 2002 Council resolution.

The charter, in the section titled “Mayor’s Duties at Council Meetings,” puts it this way: “The mayor shall have authority to preserve order.”

Resolution 3407, on the same subject, states: “The presiding officer shall preserve decorum.”

Here’s what happened during the April 28 meeting:

During their discussion about a city proposal to impose system development charges, councilors asked for comments from the public.

Christopher Christie of Baker City, who supports SDCs, was the second of two people who addressed the Council.

Christie had been speaking for about 5fi minutes when Councilor Milo Pope said: “Mr. mayor, I protest.”

Pope, who agreed with the city staff’s proposal to postpone a decision on SDCs until a stormwater plan is finished, described Christie’s comments as “wasting time.”

Ideally, Pope’s words would have been the last ones until Dorrah decided how to proceed.

Dorrah seemed to agree — he banged his gavel, in any case.

But neither Christie nor Pope nor City Manager Steve Brocato heeded that warning.

Christie, understandably miffed at having his comments cut off even though the previous speaker, Lorrie Harvey, had talked without interruption for eight minutes, cited “equal treatment under the law.”

Pope, a retired judge, said he “knows all about equal treatment, but I also know about wasting time.”

Neither Pope nor Christie complied with Resolution 3407. It states that council members “shall neither by conversation nor otherwise delay or interrupt the proceedings,” and that members of the public “shall observe the same rules of propriety, decorum and good conduct applicable to members of the Council.”

Unfortunately, the situation worsened.

Brocato told Christie he would have to leave the room if he “couldn’t follow the procedures.”

Resolution 3407 does state that “any person making personal, impertinent, and slanderous remarks or who becomes boisterous while addressing the council shall be removed from the room as directed by the presiding officer.”

That last part, to which we added the italics, is the most important.

Regardless of whether you think Christie’s comments were personal, impertinent or slanderous, or whether you believe he was boisterous — and we don’t — the City Manager doesn’t decide who deserves to be removed unless the mayor gives him that authority.

Which Dorrah did not. In fact he told Brocato, as he should have, to “please be quiet.”

Dorrah also was right to chide Christie for alleging that Brocato “provokes people every meeting.” Resolution 3407 states that citizens “shall limit remarks to the agenda item under discussion,” which was SDCs, not Brocato.

After a minute or so, during which several people were talking simultaneously, Dorrah decided that Christie could speak for “one more minute.”

The April 28 quarrel neither helped the council deliberate toward its decision, nor encouraged other residents to follow Christie to the lectern.

The bottom line here is that when a question of procedure is presented to Dorrah, all discussion — whether among councilors, city staff or the audience — should cease until the mayor makes his ruling.

Dorrah earned the gavel. People ought to pay attention when he raps it.