Council appoints Councilman Waters to Visit Marietta board after substitute motion

Marietta City Council appointed Councilman Waters to the Visit Marietta board after a substitute motion, the council said during Monday’s meeting.

Council members had discussed reappointing Councilman Goldstein, who has served approximately eight years, but a substitute motion to appoint Councilman Waters was offered and seconded. The council voted in favor of the substitute motion and carried it; Waters was welcomed to the board.

Council members described Visit Marietta (formerly the Marietta Visitors Bureau) as the local nonprofit that administers tourism-related funds, including hotel/motel and auto rental taxes, and passes tourism grants through contracts. A councilmember explained that, under the organization’s bylaws, the council appoints one of its members to the Visit Marietta board and that an appointed council member would typically need to abstain from votes on contracts where they would otherwise have a direct conflict.

The city attorney advised the council that open-records rules — not the open-meetings provision — govern whether candidate materials must be made public and stated that materials for executive-level candidates may need to be made available 14 days in advance when they constitute open records. The attorney said names alone may not trigger the same requirement.

Separately, a councilmember asked about the prosecutor’s contract status; the transcript records that the prosecutor’s contract ends on the tenth and that the council must decide whether to renew it by that date.

What’s next: Councilman Waters will represent the council on the Visit Marietta board; staff and council members discussed informal onboarding and attending the board’s next meeting.