An effort to create a procedure for removing absentee city council members in Schenectady is stalled after a veto by Mayor Gary McCarthy.
The Schenectady City Council declined to take action on the vetoed ordinance at its meeting Monday night, effectively sending the measure back to committee.
The ordinance originally passed by a vote of 4-3 earlier this month. However, five of the council's seven members would've needed to vote in favor to override the mayor's veto.
The measure would allow three-quarters of the City Council to vote to eject members who are absent for more than three months. Absentee members would have a chance to explain themselves.
In a veto letter addressed to Council President Carl Williams, McCarthy said the legislation was too vague and moot given existing state law.
"The issues you are purportedly trying to deal with, if they existed, are easily covered in existing state law," McCarthy wrote. "Make a decision on the number of garbage bags a resident can put out and announce where you want to place pod housing in Schenectady."
Williams responded to the mayor's letter at the end of Monday's meeting, calling some of McCarthy's comments "distasteful."
"It also cautions me that an individual that can speak to an elected official, an elevated elected official, in that manner would make me very puzzled at how this individual would speak to city staff who are less fortunate and do not have a platform to respond back," Williams said.
Williams proposed the legislation after Councilmember Carmel Patrick suffered a stroke last year and spent seven months away while recovering. Patrick returned in mid-July against her doctor's advice.
Patrick was one of three council members to vote against the measure. She pointed out state law already allows city councils to eject absentee members.
"I still feel like the timing of it coincided with me having that long absence due to my stroke recovery," Patrick said in an interview after that vote earlier this month. "So I just still feel like, although I've been told it wasn't personal, it still seems personal to me, and so that's why I voted against it tonight."
