Assistant City Editor

The long-awaited vote to enact the landlord-tenant ordinance has not legally occurred yet, as originally thought.

“It was only the second reading, that was the problem,” City Clerk Donna Johnson said.

The ordinance likely will be placed on the agenda for the Tuesday, Nov. 13 city council meeting, Johnson said.

The problem apparently arose after Mayor Greg Sparrow assumed that 7th ward Ald. Joe Sonsowski’s abstention vote counted as a vote for the majority. In most council votes, this would be the case.

Usually, when an ordinance is heard on its first reading, it is received and filed to be heard for a second reading at the next council meeting. However, the council can choose to vote on its second reading at the same meeting if it is agreed to be heard by a two-thirds approval vote. In this instance, an abstention vote is not considered a majority vote. According to Johnson, very seldom is there an abstention vote that makes the difference when a waiver on the second reading procedure is put forth.

“This doesn’t happen very often at all,” Johnson said.

The vote to waive the second reading procedure and hear the ordinance for a final vote was 5-2, with one abstention. This did not meet the two-thirds requirement. But Sparrow thought it had after adding the abstention vote in to the majority and went on to hold the second reading.

Johnson said they will bring the ordinance back at the next meeting for a second reading just to be safe.

“We don’t want anything to come up in a legal case where we find out that we didn’t legally pass it,” Johnson said.

Johnson said she thinks the ordinance will still be passed, just a little later than originally thought.

“The ordinance will probably pass on Tuesday, (Nov. 13) and probably with more votes than last time,” Johnson said. “But you never know what can come up between now and then to change an alderman’s vote.”

After Monday’s council meeting, 1st ward Ald. Andy Small, who voted against waiving the second reading procedure, said, “When we take a year to process this ordinance, I don’t think it would be improper to wait until the next board meeting to take a vote.”

In the end, he got what he was looking for.