Discon enjoys most peaceful council meeting of career after running out of council members to argue with

Zuckerman and Lane absent, leaving only Vogeltanz to be a pain in everyone’s ass

MANDEVILLE — City Council Chairman Scott Discon reportedly presided over the most productive and least stressful meeting of his tenure Thursday evening after discovering that the easiest way to eliminate parliamentary disputes is to simply not have enough council members present to create them.

With Councilman-at-Large Jason Zuckerman and District III Councilwoman Jill Lane absent, Discon was left with what political scientists are now calling “the perfect governing body” — three council members, no procedural battles, and absolutely nobody objecting to every sentence before it was finished. The graphic below proves their absence beyond a shadow of doubt.

Witnesses said Discon appeared visibly confused several times during the meeting after successfully completing entire thoughts without someone disagreeing with him.

“He kept looking over toward Jason’s empty chair like he was waiting for an objection,” one attendee said. “After about 20 minutes, I think he finally accepted that nobody was going to challenge his interpretation of Robert’s Rules or accuse him of violating parliamentary procedure.”

The evening was so uneventful that several controversial agenda items — including proposed changes to the council’s meeting rules and a vote involving short-term rental regulations — were simply postponed until enough council members were available to disagree with one another.

District II Councilman Kevin Vogeltanz told The Mandevillain that he didn’t call for a point of order all night because without Zuckerman there, Discon was calm and agreeable. “Hell, he might have actually sided with me against himself if I had. What’s the fun in that?” he said.

Experts agreed it was the most efficient solution the council has found to date.

“The chairman spent weeks preparing revisions to meeting procedures,” said one observer. “Then, by sheer coincidence, he discovered that the best way to avoid procedural disputes is to postpone discussing procedures.”

According to those in attendance, the meeting proceeded at an almost unsettling pace.

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I honestly thought I was in the wrong meeting.

— City Attorney Elizabeth Sconzert

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Agenda items involving festivals, races, engineering contracts, and personnel changes passed with little discussion. Robert’s Rules of Order reportedly remained closed for nearly the entire meeting, marking the first time the book had gone unused since being purchased.

Several audience members admitted the silence became uncomfortable.

“At one point nobody argued about what motion was actually on the floor,” City Attorney Elizabeth Sconzert said. “I honestly thought I was in the wrong meeting.”

The absence of Lane also produced unexpected efficiencies.

For the first time in recent memory, no one requested clarification on what a “yes” vote would mean in terms of postponing an item, overruling the chair, sustaining the chair, adopting an amendment, rejecting an amendment, amending the amendment, or simply asking whether the amendment was actually the amendment everyone was talking about.

Council members completed multiple procedural votes without first conducting what parliamentary historians refer to as the traditional, 10-minute “So… what exactly are we voting on?” discussion.

Meanwhile, Zuckerman’s empty chair reportedly maintained a perfect record of not disputing anything Discon had said, and the phrase “I’m going to tell you why you’re wrong about that” was not uttered a single time.

“It was honestly the most cooperative Jason has ever been,” Discon noted.

Following adjournment, he described the evening as “surprisingly relaxing” before cautioning that the experiment should not become routine.

“I wouldn’t want people getting the impression council meetings are supposed to go this smoothly… they’re not,” he said.

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