Which Is It?

Bob Geary, over at Indyweek.com, has a piece on the current quagmire known as the Raleigh City Council. In the news recently have been several bones of contention: the Planning Commission nomination process, and a couple of development issues in the old town. Is a recommended read....

The real irony lies in these quotes, tho.

The problem is defined here:

While these issues were being debated behind the scenes, The News & Observer reported that the four councilors have been meeting and talking as a group throughout the year, a practice that is completely legal but which Meeker nonetheless called "improper" if they were plotting to block a development project.

Under the state's open meetings law, five members of the eight-member council cannot meet in private because they constitute a majority capable of making decisions outside of public view. There's no bar in the law, though, against four councilors talking together—and such meetings, in various combination, are common in Raleigh City Hall.

And a suggestion from the Mayor to solve the other problem goes this way:

The initial council vote, two weeks ago, was 4-1 for Vance, with Meeker among the three declining to vote. His MM allies want the mayor to follow his past practice of "governing from the middle," which meant joining four-vote pluralities to make a majority. Meeker was noncommittal in an interview Tuesday.

"I'm encouraging the councilors to resolve that issue informally," he said.

Exactly how does he envision that happening?