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Members have entered their vote by pushing a button. Such a voting <br />system would erase the need to change voting and seating sequences <br />from Council meeting to Council meeting. It would also ensure txuly <br />independent voting based on that Council Member's beliefs. The public <br />deserves no less. <br />In addition, I suggest that the Mayor continue to sit in the middle of the <br />dais to facilitate his role as the presider of the meeting, and I suggest <br />that all other Council Members are seated by seniority, with the most <br />senior member sitting next to the Mayor and so on until the least senior <br />Council Member is seated. The seniority seating method seems to be the <br />choice and practice on most other formal multi-member bodies. <br />Proposed Rule 7. <br />No Comment. <br />Proposed Rule 8. <br />�nction not budgeted. <br />Moreover, I understand that to be a sworn peace o�cer in Minnesota one <br />must be POST certified. Yet, the proposed rule refers to sworn but not <br />necessarily PpST-certified officers serving as a Sergeant-at-Arms. <br />The Council will have to consider the appearance of having a uniformed <br />police officer at each Council Meeting. <br />Finally, placing the proposed Sergeant-at-Arms "under the direction of <br />the presiding officer" may violate Minnesota law if this phrase means the <br />presiding officer, a civilian, could order a sworn police officer to arrest <br />someone. Sworn police officers are required, I believe, to exercise <br />independent professional judgment in using their arrest powers; they <br />cannot lawfully obey a direction from anyone to arrest someone when to <br />arrest that person is contrary to the officer's training and understanding <br />of criminal offenses warranting arrest. Moreover, officers arrestin.g <br />someone they believe has not committed a crime would subject the City <br />to liability exposure for potential Civil Rights violations. <br />Proposed Rule 9. <br />No Comment, except... <br />I cannot resist noting that I have an intense dislike for technical rules of <br />meeting procedure such as Roberts' Rules of Order and Mason's. No one <br />truly understands the application of all these technical rules of ineeting <br />procedure - including, I venture, Roberts and Mason. And although <br />many public bodies purport to follow Roberts' Rules of Order, my <br />experience over 20 years demonstrates to me that almost all procedural <br />� <br />