Fountain Valley council votes to maintain its discretion in mayoral appointments

The Fountain Valley City Council will not change how it selects the mayor and mayor pro tem.

When faced with a range of potential new ordinances Tuesday to amend its mayoral selection procedure, the council selected the one that most closely mirrors its current practice of using council seniority as a suggested guideline, with the council maintaining broad discretion.

Councilman John Collins was the only dissenting vote. He preferred a rule that would have made the next two in the seniority line the presumptive mayor and mayor pro tem, unless the council wanted to skip them for “good cause.”

Fountain Valley council members choose the mayor and mayor pro tem from among themselves for the one-year, largely ceremonial posts. The mayor pro tem typically is next in line for the top spot.

Colin Burns, the city’s attorney, presented the council with four sample ordinances, varying by degrees of discretion. One had no rotation guideline at all and one would require that mayors be cycled through by seniority.

The two other ordinances were in between: Either the mayor “should” be seated by seniority, or, to use a firmer concept, “shall” be, unless other council members determine that “cause exists to skip the next person in the rotation.”

“Cause means that a council member is unable or unfit to fulfill the role of mayor or mayor pro tempore for any reason including, but not limited to, malfeasance or lack of participation,” according to the “good cause” ordinance.

Collins said he preferred that option because, like the rule the rest of the council endorsed, it had built-in flexibility but wasn’t so flexible that it could allow the council to change the order without cause.

The selection issue came up a few months after the council voted, for the second year in a row, to skip then-Councilman Mark McCurdy when he came up in the rotation.

McCurdy said he was being targeted for his often-opposing opinions, but his colleagues denied that. Some had frowned on McCurdy’s absences from meetings about the city’s strategic plan and from other city events.

McCurdy resigned from the council in January, saying he needed to find work outside the area.

Parliamentary procedures

The council also agreed to a parliamentary procedures cleanup.

One key clarification: Public comments to the council must be made in writing or, if verbally, in person.

That means no comments via speakerphone, as happened in December when a resident addressed the council by cellphone while another resident held the phone to the microphone on the speaker’s podium. That speaker criticized the council for passing over McCurdy.

The parliamentary policy is advisory, not mandatory, and is subordinate to municipal code, city staff said.

hillary.davis@latimes.com

Twitter: @Daily_PilotHD