Glenn Heights Council members say their availability was never confirmed before Mayor Sonja Brown called the meeting.
GLENN HEIGHTS — Mayor Sonja Brown’s specially called Glenn Heights City Council meeting Tuesday evening lasted less than two minutes before being adjourned due to a lack of quorum.
The October 13 meeting, scheduled for 7 p.m., ended before the council could consider a single agenda item.
According to council members who spoke with Glenn Heights Future, their availability was not confirmed before the special meeting was scheduled.
The Glenn Heights City Council ordinarily meets on the first and third Tuesdays of each month. Tuesday’s meeting fell outside that regular schedule.
The mayor’s agenda included discussions concerning the city’s wastewater agreement with the Trinity River Authority, potential reductions in residential speed limits, a September payroll processing incident, and the city manager’s work plan. An executive session concerning the city manager was also scheduled.
While each subject warrants appropriate council consideration, the agenda did not identify an emergency requiring immediate action.
In fact, two of the mayor’s own agenda items called for staff to return with recommendations by December, raising questions about why those discussions required a special meeting rather than consideration during a regularly scheduled session.
The council’s next regularly scheduled meeting is October 20, just one week after the failed special meeting.
Special meetings are a legitimate tool for conducting city business. However, scheduling one without first confirming that enough council members can attend creates an obvious problem: A council cannot conduct business without a quorum.
Tuesday evening provided a particularly brief demonstration of that requirement.
With no quorum present, the meeting ended almost as quickly as it began, leaving every agenda item unaddressed.
The business will have to wait. Whether the next meeting lasts longer than two minutes remains to be seen.
