Who knew that Robert’s Rules of Order, the longstanding parliamentary guidepost to conduct of official meetings, could be the basis of a firestorm on the Shelby County Commission involving one member’s calumny against the body’s chair and another member’s vow to avenge it?
At Monday’s regular Commission meeting, commissioners had taken up a resolution to extend the time period for receipt of medical benefits by Sheriff’s Deputy Samuel Lilly, who had been badly injured in a motorcycle crash while acting as a first responder.
At one point during discussion of the matter, Chair Shante Avant was ruling on a motion by Commissioner Charles Caswell when Commissioner Edmund Ford Jr. attempted to intervene with a parliamentary point of order questioning her action.
The chair held off on responding to Ford, causing him to repeat his call and demanding that it be dealt with.
“Just a moment,” said Avant, adding, when Ford persisted, “There’s a civil way that we do all this.”
“Point of order!” Ford repeated. “That means everything’s supposed to cease. Robert’s Rules.”
“When the chair acknowledges,” said Avant, still working through her thought process.
“Acknowledge then! Please!” demanded Ford.
Instead, Avant had begun to grant speaking time to another commissioner.
That set Ford off, who asserted that his request to be heard on a point of order meant, “You’re not supposed to go to anybody else.”
With tempers clearly rising, the Commission’s parliamentarian, Lee Rankin, tried to intervene on behalf of the chair’s prerogatives.
“Youre not a commissioner!” Ford snapped, cutting her off.
There was more back-and-forth, and, as an impasse clearly began to set in, chair Avant beseeched Ford to “please cease.”
“How about you cease and you follow the rules. We knew why you became the chair, so you could be — go ahead and be the political concubine for the Mayor,” responded Ford, who nurses an ongoing feud with County Mayor Lee Harris..
“That is absolutely out of order! Cut off his microphone!” said Avant amid a rising din in the chamber.
“How about we cut you off as the chair? You should never have been chair in the first place,” said Ford.
“The disrespect at this point is ridiculous,” said Avant, who threatened to ask the jailer on hand to usher Ford out of the chamber — a possibility that parliamentarian Rankin suggested was within the scope of the rules in case of a “disruptive commissioner.”
Ultimately the fracas subsided, but that was not the end of things. Others have taken up the argument, including Commissioner Mickell Lowery, a former chair of the body and currently a contender in the 2026 county mayoral race.
On his Facebook page, Lowery called for remedial action.
“The conduct displayed by a member of this County Commission … was an unacceptable and repeated display of disrespect toward women, fellow commissioners, staff, County employees, and the general public,” wrote Lowery, who promised to sponsor “a resolution that would give the County Commission the authority to remove any member from a meeting, by supermajority vote, when their conduct or actions have been determined by the Chair to be in violation of our standards.”
Said Lowery: “Disagreement is not an excuse for disrespect … The culture of this body must change. That change starts with holding our own members accountable and reaffirming that disrespect will not be tolerated.”