Commissioners impose supermajority voting process
Published 10:15 am Wednesday, October 16, 2024
Commissioner Dickson Farrior seeks clarification on a motion to impose a supermajority voting process. Pictured are (from left to right) Commissioner Charlie King, Jr. and Farrior.
Commissioner Robert Harris proposes a motion to require supermajority support for approving motions related to certain county business issues.
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With a motion delivered late in the meeting, the Lowndes County Commission debated and approved a measure imposing stricter standards for decision making related to county business.
Commissioner Robert Harris delivered the motion at the end of the commission’s Oct. 15 meeting, calling for the addition of a supermajority voting process for all decisions related to the particular aspects of county business. Attached to Harris’s proposal was the mandate that the super majority process, once passed, could not be revoked without supermajority support.
“At this particular time, I would like to offer a motion… that a supermajority voting process be established, effective upon passage by a simple majority, to vote on issues dealing with environment, budget, legal issues and tax abatement,” Harris said. “The supermajority voting process shall not be revoked unless done so by a supermajority voting in favor to revoke [it].”
Commissioner Joshua Simmons seconded the motion, which passed with approval from Harris, Simmons and Commission Chairman Charlie King, Jr. Commissioners Dickson Farrior and Joseph Barganier opposed the motion after a proposal by Barganier to table the vote failed to pass.
Formerly governed by a majority voting process, the newly established supermajority will require a greater number of commissioners to agree on decisions related to the specified areas of business. According to County Attorney Prince Chestnut, a supermajority for the five-member commission would require four of the five to agree on passing proposed decisions.
“A supermajority would be, for five-member [boards], that would be four out of five members,” Chestnut said. If only four of the five are present, Chestnut said three of those four would need to agree for a proposal to pass.”
Farrior described his reasons for voting against the measure.
“I think that we should wait until the new members of the commission get on before that is changed,” Farrior said. “You’re affecting the vote of a new member without him being on here.”
