GOVERNMENT 101
Government authority comes from the people.
Citizens hold the power through voting and civic participation.
Is sitting in a Board of Supervisors meeting like listening to a foreign language?
Are procedures confusing? Do county policies leave your head spinning?
And just when you think you’ve got it figured out, the rules change.
If so, this page is for you.
Here, we’ll break it down in simple terms.
Most government entities use some form of Robert’s Rules of Order, and the FC Board of Supervisors does, too.
The most recent version of Robert’s Rules of Order (12th Edition) was released in September 2020 and is copyrighted, so we can’t print it here, nor would we want to, as it is 816 pages long in total, containing 633 pages of core text plus tables, charts, and an index. So much for simple terms.
Thanks to Cornell University, we can provide a simplified version. This will be a great place to start.
Where does Franklin County differ from the standard version?
- They have something called a consent agenda that consists of several items of business. They lump them all together under a single motion. However, if any supervisor has an issue or question about an item, they can request that it be pulled, discussed, and voted on separately.
- Strict Robert’s Rules of Order require a motion to be made and seconded before any discussion is heard. Often, smaller meetings and boards forgo strict adherence and discuss a topic first to see whether there is interest in moving forward with a motion. Furthermore, Franklin County treats a motion without a second the same as one with a second, and it takes a vote whether it has a second or not.