City Council President Andrea Jenkins and Chughtai, who co-authored the rent control item in question, were at odds Thursday about how the mix-up occurred.
Jenkins, who presided over Wednesday’s meeting, took exception to Chugtai, Jamal, and Ellison’s joint characterization of the vote as “inappropriate, purposeful, and exclusionary.”
“We tried our best to be accommodating, so I can tell you it was not planned, it was not intentional,” said Jenkins, who voted in favor of the rent control measure. “To say that it was contrived to disenfranchise anybody is just flat out wrong.”
Further down in the article:
Ellison said that when he has served as chair under such circumstances, he has motioned either to delay the vote or to make no recommendations on the measure, even when he disagreed with the policy.
“As the chair of a meeting, you can pretty much look around, read the room, and make a decision, and that is what she did,” he said, referring to Jenkins. “I think the decision was a strange one, to say the least.”
Jenkins said Chughtai, Jamal, and supporters of the rent control measure did not request in advance that she delay the vote to another meeting.
“It didn’t occur to me, and no one asked me,” Jenkins said. “Had my colleagues asked me, I would have.”
City Council doing God’s work out here. This is frankly a little embarrassing for literally everyone involved in this situation.
