A family reunion. A trip to Guatemala. A church function. And an unexplained absence.
Taken together, the outside commitments left the Rochester City Council unable to approve borrowing this week to replace lead water lines or buy street maintenance vehicles.
Or to move forward on a low-income housing proposal.
“It’s unfortunate, at this point, because we've had some challenges with general attendance to the council meetings,” said Council President Miguel Meléndez.
While Council has had to postpone votes for a variety of reasons, it has not, in at least the past decade, had to do so due to not having enough members to vote. Low attendance at this week’s monthly meeting, though, led to votes on 10 separate bills being postponed until August. And that has Meléndez and others contemplating an attendance policy.
“We certainly want to make sure that we're available and doing the people's business on a month-to-month basis,” Meléndez said. "And there's really no meeting more important than the general council meeting, so to have a policy in place that is reflective of how we can get the business done for the citizens of Rochester, to me, we have to look at that.”
The Councilmembers absent from Tuesday’s meeting were Willie Lightfoot, LaShay Harris, Mary Lupien, and Kim Smith. Harris has now missed three monthly meetings since July 2024. Smith has missed four.
Meléndez said Lightfoot regularly misses July meetings due to hosting the Jefferson Avenue Tent Revival, and Harris was out of town for a family reunion. Smith and Lupien had notified the Council the day of the meeting they would not be attending, Meléndez said, adding that he had not been directly contacted by either. Smith did not return a request for comment.
“Three of us had very specific reasons that aren't repeated,” said Lupien, who was in Guatemala visiting her daughter’s family. “Like, this is not something that's going to happen next month.”
But Councilmember Mitch Gruber doesn’t see this as a unique circumstance.
“Attendance at Council has gotten progressively worse, to the point that we have five members and can’t even vote on items,” Gruber said during the meeting. “We, as a body, are not doing our due diligence for the administration, but more importantly, the citizens who asked us to serve these roles.”
Gruber leads the Council’s finance committee, which held a series of budget hearings last month. Smith, a first-term Councilmember who did not seek re-election this year, missed all of them.
Smith along with Lightfoot, who also did not run for re-election, are set to leave office in January.
City Council members’ salary is $40,207, according to the city budget. The Council president receives $50,207. And their monthly meeting schedule is set at the beginning of the year.
Gruber noted in a text message that Tuesday’s meeting date could have been changed if the number of absences had been known in advance. He suggested the attendance policy idea during the meeting.
Lupien though, in an interview Wednesday, suggested Council instead should consider taking a month off every year.
“I talked to Miguel a year ago that we should take one of the summer months and recess, like the state does, because people have vacations,” Lupien said. “Usually the summer is light anyways, so have the administration send stuff to either July or September meeting or something like that.”
On Thursday, Lupien posted an Instagram reel responding to the report from WXXI News. In the video, she said that the issue of attendance was "overblown" but also criticized how City Council currently operates.
"We don't do anything. Council really doesn't do anything," Lupien said. "We are a legislative body that does not legislate ... we are not legislating, and we should be. So Council meetings, while important and part of our job, should be so much more important."
One of the first items that had to be postponed Tuesday was a vote to transfer land once held by REACH Advocacy, a now-defunct homeless shelter system, to Person-Centered Housing Options for the development of a tiny house community.
