The Memphis City Council will reconvene Oct. 8, to finish voting on leftover agenda items from its rowdy Oct. 6 meeting, which recessed early due to an audience uproar, leaving only one agenda item receiving a vote.
Councilman Jeff Warren verified the upcoming meeting with The Commercial Appeal.
The number of spectators could be limited at the reconvened meeting Thursday, or outright banned from council chambers.
The one vote council approved — a two-week deferral on a potential data center moratorium — outraged many attendees among the crowd of approximately 200, which led to the meeting's early recess.
The moratorium vote was brought to the front of the meeting, ahead of all other agenda items, since it was a much-awaited vote among most of the crowd.
The uproar following the council's decision to punt its vote caused a laundry list of other items — including millions of dollars worth of Memphis Light, Gas & Water contracts, two city ordinance amendments up for final reading, and a resolution to lease the Pipkin Building — to be delayed.
In a statement on social media, Council Chairwoman Jana Swearengen-Washington confirmed Warren's comments to The CA, and said there will be a 1 p.m. planning committee meeting, and the full council will reconvene at 4 p.m. the same day.
Spectators limited in chambers, livestream available
According to Warren, Thursday's meetings will not allow in-person spectators inside the chambers. The only people that will be allowed inside, he said, are those who have "direct business with the council," such as those presenting an agenda item or those who are members of the news media.
There will be a livestream, Warren said, for the rest of the viewing public.
A public notice on the council's website did confirm the public will not be allowed in-person access to the meetings.
Despite not allowing the public in chambers, the notice said the council will allow 20 people to speak during general public comment. To speak, members of the public must get a comment request card from security personnel at the entrance to Memphis City Hall and submit the request card to the same security personnel before 4 p.m. Thursday.
Only the first 20 people “that properly registered to speak” will be allowed to give a two-minute public comment, the notice said. It was not clear from the notice how people would speak during the meeting.
Swearengen-Washington's statement did not say in-person spectators would be barred from the meeting, nor did it mention in-person spectating at all. "Both meetings will be available to the public by livestream," her statement said.
"What occurred during Tuesday's meeting went beyond spirited disagreement and passionate public participation," Swearengen-Washington wrote in the statement. "The continued disruptions, threats, and physical altercations created an unsafe environment and prevented the council from completing the work the people of Memphis entrusted to us."
All Memphis City Council meetings are livestreamed on its YouTube channel, which can be viewed by clicking this link. It can also be streamed directly from the Memphis City Council website, which can be viewed by clicking this link.
Make sure 'the people's business is done'
Warren, when asked about the legality of barring people from in-person viewing of the meeting, said he sees the online-only viewership of the meetings similar to how the council conducted business during the COVID-19 pandemic.
"We wouldn't do it if it was illegal," Warren said. "The issue you've got is we have to make sure that the people's business is done. That meeting has been disrupted, we have to go back into that meeting and make sure that we deal with the people's business."
He also emphasized that Tuesday's meeting was not adjourned, or formally ended, but only recessed.
The agenda for the Thursday afternoon meeting, Warren said, will include items from Tuesday's recessed meeting.
Attorney speaks to limiting in-person attendees
Council Attorney Allan Wade, in a phone call with The CA, said he is of the belief that the council is within its rights to bar in-person spectators since it is technically a continuation of Tuesday's meeting. In Wade's opinion, there is no legal difference between a meeting being recessed from Tuesday until Thursday and a meeting being recessed from Tuesday at 6 p.m. and returning at 7 p.m. with the chambers cleared.
"It is the same meeting that took place on Tuesday, it's just been recessed to a different day," Wade said. "And the circumstances upon which it was recessed was that it was recessed to allow security to remove people from the chambers. And had that occurred [on the same day] there wouldn't have been anybody in [the council chambers]."
That same logic, Wade said, applies to giving public notice about the meeting. He said notice will be given, but he believes the council will not run into a time requirement since it is technically the same meeting.
Wade pointed to "threats to the councilmembers' lives or safety and intimations on social media that they intend to come back and do the same thing that they did before" were part of why the council will not allow the public inside.
Swearengen-Washington, he said, could also decide to place a limit on how many people attend the meeting in-person, if she chose to do so, instead of outright barring people entry.
Public safety reasons to limit attendees
He also said the change in public access to Thursday's meeting is not a permanent change, but because of the "proximity and tainted nature" of the meeting the council believed "for public safety reasons, we may need to take some different path. Otherwise we'll never get anything done."
Tuesday's meeting ended in shouts between councilmembers and impassioned audience members as well as attendee chants, following the council's 7-5 vote to delay voting on a data center moratorium.
MLGW contracts delayed, will be heard
The council moved through three honorary resolutions at the start of the meeting, honoring a Memphis doctor, Hispanic Heritage Month and changing a street name.
But four public zoning hearings, a number of ordinances and resolutions, and the approval of a slew of Memphis Light, Gas & Water contracts never reached the council floor for discussion. In total, more than $5.7 million in MLGW contracts were delayed as part of the early recess. Those items are generally voted on in one singular vote as part of the council's MLGW fiscal consent agenda.
Ordinances to amend the city's pension system and the Memphis-Shelby County Building Home Program are both up for third and final reading.
A resolution that, if passed, would lease the Pipkin Building to Bluff City Pickleball was also on the agenda.
Lucas Finton covers crime, policing, jails, the courts and criminal justice policy for The Commercial Appeal. He can be reached by phone or email: (901) 208-3922 and Lucas.Finton@commercialappeal.com, and followed on X @LucasFinton.
This article originally appeared on Memphis Commercial Appeal: Memphis City Council to resume recessed meeting days after clash on moratorium
