A unanimous vote of the Greensboro City Council doesn’t mean much in this the year of the coronavirus.

At the special City Council meeting on Tuesday Oct. 6, Councilmember Sharon Hightower made a motion to postpone the agenda item “Resolution Adopting Greensboro Police Department Use of Force Reduction Policies” to the Tuesday, Oct. 20 meeting of the City Council.

That motion was seconded by Councilmember Michelle Kennedy and passed by a unanimous vote of the City Council.

However, the agenda for the Tuesday, Oct. 20 meeting of the City Council did not include the resolution adopting the Greensboro Police Department use of force reduction policies. The matter was not brought up during the meeting.

The resolution was also not on the agenda for the Nov. 2 City Council meeting or on the agenda for the Nov. 17 meeting of City Council, and is not on the agenda for the Dec. 1 meeting of the City Council.

Mayor Nancy Vaughan does not have the authority to overrule a majority vote of the City Council, nor does the city clerk, who is responsible for setting the City Council agendas.

However, in this case someone made the decision to ignore a unanimous vote of the City Council and postpone the “Resolution Adopting Greensboro Police Department Use of Force Reduction Policies” indefinitely.

The City Council, having voted to postpone the resolution to Oct. 20, has the authority to postpone the item indefinitely or forever, but to do so it has to be brought up at an official meeting of the City Council and the action has to be taken by a vote of the City Council.

The City Council does not have the authority to postpone the item, by consensus, by talking amongst themselves in the council offices, by text messages or emails, as that would constitute an illegal meeting of the City Council. However, that is how this City Council chooses to do business in private out of the public view as if the North Carolina open meetings law didn’t exist.