At Tuesday’s Port Huron City Council meeting, a proposal to open a performance review of City Manager James Fried failed after no council member moved the request, Mayor Anita R. Ashford said.

The request — introduced by a council member who did not give a clear name on the record and described as coming from “myself and Miss Mayor Ashford” — was placed on the agenda as a late addition, the speaker said. When the mayor asked for a motion, none was offered. “Hearing none, then that fails,” Mayor Anita R. Ashford said, citing Robert’s Rules of Order as the basis for the outcome.

Council rules and parliamentary procedure shaped what followed. A staff member, Todd, read aloud Rule 13 on points of order and explained how a member may demand a ruling of the chair if they believe rules are not being followed. Todd said the chair’s ruling can then be appealed to the full body.

After the item failed for lack of a motion, council members and others continued to dispute whether the subject could be discussed informally after the formal agenda concluded. The mayor said she would explain the matter in her closing remarks but that the formal agenda item could not be discussed because it had not been moved.

The exchange prompted multiple speakers to raise concerns about agenda control and transparency. Some council members and members of the public argued for more clarity about how items are placed on the agenda and how late additions should be handled; others urged adherence to the council’s published rules. No formal follow-up motion to place the review on a future agenda was made during the meeting.

Because no motion was made, the council did not take any formal action on the performance review and no timeline, scope, or assignment of next steps was recorded on the public record during the meeting. The mayor told the council she would provide an explanation in her remarks at the end of the session.

The dispute highlighted tensions between members over procedural control of the agenda and over how, when, and whether internal personnel matters may be scheduled for formal consideration by the full council. The council did not set a date or deadline for reconsidering a performance review during the meeting.

For residents seeking more information, the council’s rules of procedure (Rule 13, Point of Order) were cited repeatedly during the discussion; those rules outline how members may raise procedural objections and how the chair’s ruling can be appealed to the body.

No vote occurred on the substance of a performance review, and the council left the matter without a formal decision to study or investigate the city manager’s employment or performance.