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Rules Committee outlines order of mayoral succession, sets two-year experience floor
Summary
Lee's Summit Rules Committee agreed on a recommended mayoral succession order prioritizing committee chairs — with public works first and finance second — and asked staff to draft ordinance language requiring a minimum of two years' council experience and fallback to vice chairs if needed.
The Lee's Summit Rules Committee on Jan. 13 reached a working consensus on a mayoral succession scheme to be included in a proposed ordinance amending Chapter 10 (Emergency and Disaster Planning) to add a continuity-of-government section (proposed Section 10-11).
Committee members recommended an order of succession that begins with the chair of the Public Works Committee, followed by the Finance and Budget Committee, the Community Development Committee (CDC), the Legislative Committee and then the Rules Committee. The group also agreed that, to ensure experience in emergency leadership, a council member assuming mayoral duties under the succession rule should have at least two years of council experience; if no eligible person meets the experience threshold, succession would follow the committee order without the experience floor. Chairperson Shields said the priority is clarity in an emergency: "The most important thing is just having a process in place so that if we have an emergency, there's no question, there's no legal wrangling," Shields said.
Members debated seniority versus committee-chair-based succession. Council member Hodges said she favored seniority because longer-serving members bring experience; other members noted committee chairs generally are experienced members and could be appropriate short-term leaders during disasters. Committee members also asked staff to include language that, if chairs are unavailable, vice chairs be used in the same order.
Committee members described the reasoning for placing Public Works first and Finance second: public works handles immediate infrastructure and debris response, and finance manages emergency spending and FEMA reimbursement. A staff member summarized: "In the types of disasters we typically have here, public works is probably number one because the first thing that you've got to roll out is whatever machinery you have to remove debris or snow... Finance then is number two because you've got to worry about how much money you're spending and are you doing it correctly so that you can get reimbursed from FEMA."
No ordinance was adopted at the Jan. 13 meeting. The committee asked staff to draft formal ordinance language reflecting the agreed order and the two-year minimum experience requirement, and to return the draft for further committee review before sending it to the full council.
