A number of motions were thrown onto the table this afternoon during the Community Maritime Park Associates’ Bylaws Committee special meeting. Members shied away from the bigger-deal changes, but did embrace an attendance policy.
The Bylaws Committee approved an attendance policy for the CMPA board, as well as its committees. If members miss three meetings in a row, or five total during a year, they may now be removed unless the chairman of the board deems the absences acceptable.
Councilman Larry B. Johnson, also a CMPA member, started the attendance discussion. He said that the threshold would give members “motivation to be here.â€
CMPA Executive Director Ed Spears tallied up what the policy would have meant during the past year: six members would have been cut in 2012, while one would have been cut thus far this year, with “a couple of others on the verge.â€
“Councilman, you would be removed for missing five meetings,†Spears noted.
“I would totally accept that,†Johnson replied.
Motions that failed to gain traction today involved the composition of the CMPA. There were efforts to reduce the size of the board, as well as an effort to grant the board the power to appoint some of its own members.
Johnson, who is a proponent of trimming the size of not only the CMPA, but also the Pensacola City Council, suggested reducing the park board to nine members by September 30. He said members of the city council should individually select the the CMPA members.
CMPA member Dr. Jimmy Jones called that possibility “an open can of worms.†Fellow member Mark Taylor described it as “too harsh, too quick of a change.â€
“That motion has the potential to truly turn this board upside down,†Taylor said.
The reduction failed on a 3-5 vote. Instead, the board reaffirmed the 12-member status outlined in its bylaws; this move served to clean up a recent expansion to 14 members made by the city council but never formalized in the bylaws, and will be accomplished as terms expire.
CMPA member Ann Hill offered up the unsuccessful motion to allow the park board to select some of its own members. Currently the city council appoints all members; Hill wanted the CMPA to appoint 49 percent of the membership.
Due to requirements associated with New Market Tax Credits, the CMPA must be an instrumentality of the city. Hill suggested that if the city council appointed 50-plus-1 percent of the board—with the remaining appointments falling to the CMPA—the tax credits would not be jeopardized.
City Attorney Jim Messer advised that the board seek legal advice before going that direction. The motion failed 3-5.