Pensacola City Attorney Lysia Bowling has issued her legal opinion on whether resolutions adopted by the Pensacola City Council are binding if the mayor does not veto them.
The council passed on Feb. 11 Resolution No. 3-16 granting the council access to all the city hall floors, a right they had until City Administrator Eric Olson took away their security clearance earlier this year.
After the vote, the security status wasn’t changed, and the mayor did not veto the resolution within the five days mandated by the 2010 city charter. Instead Olson declared that the resolution was non-binding.
When asked about the city administrator’s ability to ignore a council resolution, Bowling responded on March 1: “I do not find anything in the language of the body of the resolution binding the Mayor to take action. The Mayor may exercise veto authority over a resolution on the same basis that he would veto any other legislative action of City Council, i.e. to signify his opposition to the legislative action.”
In March, the City Council asked for further clarification, which prompted the latest legal opinion.
In her April 11 opinion, Bowling sees the city hall security as an executive power and that the council can not pass a resolution infringing on that power. In other words, the resolution was never valid.
Why didn’t Bowling speak up in February when the council discussed the resolution? Why waste so much time?
Of course, the mayor could have also vetoed the resolution in February and stopped this discussion then.