SARANAC LAKE — There was dead silence at a Feb. 13 village board meeting as four trustees held a work stoppage, refusing to move forward with the meeting until Mayor Jimmy Williams agreed to add two resolutions submitted by one trustee to the agenda.

Williams said the resolutions came in late and were incomplete. Trustee Tom Catlillaz, who submitted the resolutions, said they were complete and should have been allowed on the agenda in the first place.

Trustees either said they should discuss taking a vote on the resolutions — both related to Williams calling the police to remove former village attorney and trustee Paul Van Cott from a Jan. 30 work session — or accused Williams of making “unilateral” decisions on what goes on the agenda.

Both resolutions were submitted by Deputy Mayor Catillaz.

One resolution set ground rules for the board to expel someone from a meeting, requiring a majority vote of the board to do so. The other requested Van Cott’s presence at any board meeting or work session on short term rental regulation, so that he can “be a reference for board members and answer any questions posed by any board member and express any opinions requested by any board member.”

At the Jan. 30 work session on short-term vacation rental regulations, Van Cott, an attorney who has worked on STR regulations for other municipalities, attended. Immediately after the meeting began, he spoke out, disagreeing with something Williams had said. The two began arguing and tensions rose for around 10 minutes before Williams called the police chief, saying Van Cott was being “unruly.” Van Cott left the meeting before an SLPD officer arrived, saying he would not waste their time.

The rest of the village board opposed Williams’ removal of Van Cott from the meeting.

“The way that the mayor treated Paul Van Cott. That’s not the way we treat people,” Catillaz said. “He was treated very, very poorly, I thought.”

On Feb. 9, Catillaz emailed his resolutions in to the village clerk at around 7:15 a.m., but Village Clerk Amanda Hopf said she did not receive them. He faxed them in at around 12:15 p.m. The deadline to add things to the agenda is noon. But board members said this has been flexible in the past, especially for things like technology issues. They also said resolutions have been created at meetings.

Williams also felt the resolutions were incomplete, not including the background information and supporting reasoning in “whereas” statements before the “be it resolved” portion of the language.

Catillaz said these parts are “meaningless.”

“Everyone knew exactly where it came from and why it was there,” he said.

“If the thing came in on time and was complete, it would have been on the agenda,” Williams said. “Because I do not have any right to not post people’s resolutions on the agenda.”

Hopf said it was the mayor’s decision on whether or not these resolutions got on the agenda, not hers. Williams confirmed this.

The Feb. 13 meeting ground to a stalemate for a bit as the board refused to move forward without them, and Williams did not want to add them at first.

“The four trustees only moved and seconded items that were time critical, such as paying the bills,” Trustee Rich Shapiro wrote in an email to the Enterprise. “This ‘slowdown’ essentially forced the mayor to agree to put those items back onto the agenda. … This was an important very public step to reinforce that the village board is made up of five members, and one member, even if it is the mayor, does not get to control what can be discussed and voted on at a meeting over the objections of the rest of the board.”

Williams said the board had a lot of important things to do and wanted to move on with the meeting. He said they didn’t have time for “games.”

“I know it kind of seems super petulant, like we’re five children up here just having an argument on the playground, but it’s really structurally important,” Trustee Matt Scollin told Williams. “And if you don’t think it is, I hope you’ll do some more looking into it. Because how we conduct our business matters. The process matters and getting it right matters.”

Williams said they were sacrificing business and that he was “disappointed.”

Scollin spoke up and said if they wanted to move forward on the meeting they should add these resolutions to the agenda and take a vote on them. So that’s what they did.

Williams said he was glad they started the discussion but felt the “silent treatment” was not the right way to do it. He liked the resolution Catillaz had drafted on the expulsion ground rules. The village had not had language clarifying this process. This resolution passed with all five votes.

Williams voted against the Van Cott-specific resolution, but it passed with the rest of the board’s vote.

Williams said members of the public, elected officials and village employees are not the same and that Van Cott is a member of the public, and should be treated as such in regards to his ability to comment at meetings. He said the village has its own legal council and that he personally does not view Van Cott as a subject matter expert.

“In my experience so far with Paul, I believe that he does not offer necessarily objective options but drives toward outcomes that he prefers personally,” Williams said.

Williams said Van Cott wants to be an unelected part of the discussion.

Board members disagreed.

“To me, it’s not about Paul. It’s about preserving the board’s right to ask anybody in attendance any question at any time,” Scollin said.

Scollin wrote in an email to the Enterprise after the meeting that this was not about “people or personalities.”

“It was about protecting a foundational principle of local government,” he wrote.

After all, trustees like himself are elected by villagers to represent their views on the board through drafting, discussing and voting on resolutions.

“The ability of any board member to submit any resolution for full and timely public consideration is sacrosanct,” Scollin wrote. “This was a question, to me, of pragmatic structural control, and the preservation of rules-based, collaborative decision making.

“I will use every lever of influence available to enthusiastically defend that ability, for as long as I am on the board,” Scollin wrote.

Williams feels this resolution doesn’t change anything. He said if Van Cott is invited to be a member of a panel in a work session, then he’s on the panel. But if he or anyone else is not asked to attend, then they can’t speak outside of public comment.

“If you allow every meeting to turn into a back-and-forth whenever somebody desires, it’s hard to get things done,” Williams said. “And furthermore, what you’re creating then is an unelected trustee.”

With the resolutions passed, the board moved on and had an hours-long meeting on STRs.

“I’m hoping that he got the message that he is not in authoritarian rule of the village,” Shapiro said Wednesday.

“Rich calls everything I do authoritarian,” Williams said Wednesday.

“We will get a lot more done listening and not demanding,” Catillaz said Wednesday.