Council Members Beier and Meadows Take Leaves of Absence

City Council approved on Tuesday requests for leaves of absence from two of its five members, both starting in mid-August. Council Member Ruth Beier’s leave extends through the end of 2018, while Mayor Mark Meadows’s leave is through October 1.

Possible leave for Council Member Ruth Beier:

Beier, who has worked for more than two decades for the Michigan Education Association as an economist, told ELi that she plans to go into teaching. She requested leave because “I will be starting my teaching career next year and the class that I need before I can student teach is only offered on Tuesday evenings.”

However, Beier told ELi yesterday that she may not need to miss Council meetings, after all. There is a possibility that the class time could be moved to earlier on Tuesday so she would miss perhaps only the first half-hour of Council meetings. She expects to know in about a week whether this will be possible.

Beier was not present at the August 14 Council meeting where the request was granted, so Council Member Shanna Draheim explained what her leave would mean, in the event that Beier’s classes do, indeed, conflict with Council meetings.

“She’ll still be acting as a Council member during that period,” Draheim said. “We do a lot of other things – meetings, liaisons, things like that – that she will continue her role in.” Beier serves as the Council liaison to the Historic District Commission, Housing Commission, EL Meridian Water and Sewer Authority, and the Downtown Development Authority’s Project and Infrastructure Committee and Public Policy Committee.

Council Member Erik Altmann said he was glad there is a mechanism for members of Council to take a leave. “If this were formally a full-time job, instead of just actually a full-time job, I might think about it a little bit differently,” he said. “But people need to be able to do things and still have this position.”

The City Charter provides that members who miss four consecutive regular Council meetings automatically lose their position on Council unless such absences are excused. The resolution adopted by Council excused Beier for absences at the meetings she would miss, so she would retain her position on Council.

Mayor Mark Meadows’ leave:

Meadows is taking a six-week leave to hike and bicycle with his wife from Camino del Norte to Santiago de Compostela in northern Spain. Last summer, when Meadows was completing hiking the Appalachian Trial, the Council scheduled fewer meetings during the summer, so Meadows did not request a leave.

Continuing to get the City’s business done:

Four Council meetings are scheduled while both Beier and Meadows are expected to be absent – two regular meetings on September 4 and 18 and two discussion-only meetings on August 21 and September 11.

Mayor Pro Tem Erik Altmann is expected to chair those meetings and perform all other mayoral duties during this period, which is the normal procedure when the mayor is outside the city.

Three members of Council constitute a quorum, so the Council should be able to conduct its business at regular Tuesday meetings through the month of September if members Altmann, Shanna Draheim and Aaron Stephens are all in attendance.

Four votes are required for some Council actions, however, including approval of a Special Use Permit (SUP) that sometimes accompanies a site plan for a development application. Planning and Zoning Administrator David Haywood told ELi that no development applications that require an SUP are expected to come to Council before October. If four votes are needed on an action in September, Council could schedule a meeting on a different day of the week, with proper notice.

The four members who were present at the Council meeting on Tuesday approved the site plan and SUP for the development at Grand River Avenue and Abbot Road, moving that plan forward before Meadows’ departure. This development has been under consideration with the current developer, DRW/Convexity, in one version or another for about two-and-a-half-years.