Following the Vienna Town Council’s November elections in odd-numbered years, newly elected members will be sworn in at 6 p.m. at Town Hall the first business day of the new year.
Council members voted 6-1 Jan. 8 to approve that new arrangement, which was used for the first time this year. The new policy did not require a town-code amendment and may be altered by subsequent Councils.
The Council rejected two other alternatives: having members sworn in at the last meeting of December after the election or at the first regular meeting in January.
Newly elected Council member Sandra Allen, participating in her first regular meeting, cast the only vote against the proposal. She preferred having members sworn in at the last meeting in December, saying this would afford them more time to get up to speed.
“It would give the new members the ability to catch up and be better prepared for [their first] session,” said Allen, who added that the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors also swears in its members in December before their terms officially start Jan. 1.
But the rest of the Council favored holding the swearing-in ceremony as early as possible in January, saying that arrangement had worked out well this year. Member Howard Springsteen opposed having the ceremony in December, adding that the Council would “shoot ourselves in the foot” if that meeting had to be canceled for some reason.
Mayor Linda Colbert agreed, saying new Council members don’t officially take office until January and cannot access their town e-mail accounts before then.
Vienna’s swearing-in procedures have assumed a variety of forms in recent years. For many years, newly elected members were sworn in at the start of the first Council meeting in July, following that May’s election. On some occasions, they took their oaths of office right before that meeting began or on other dates.
In July 2020, after a May election delayed by two weeks because of the pandemic, the town invited the community to a special swearing-in ceremony in the new gymnasium at the Vienna Community Center. That venue’s larger space allowed for the social distancing then in vogue.
The Council this year held a swearing-in ceremony Jan. 2, conducted by Town Clerk Melanie Clark. Those sworn in, which because of the new November election schedule for the first time included all six Council members and the mayor, immediately went into a meeting offering instruction on parliamentary procedure.
“I like the idea of being sworn in and going straight to parliamentary training. We probably should do it every week,” joked Council member Charles Anderson. This year’s ceremony dovetailed nicely with the body’s required non-business organizational meeting, he added.
