DUNMORE FALLS — The City Council voted 3–2 late Tuesday to table a motion to table an earlier motion to table discussion of a table, concluding a six-hour session in which no member could say with confidence what was currently on the floor.

The table, a 48-inch laminate folding model that had been the original subject of the agenda item, was never discussed.

“I believe we began with a question about whether to replace it,” said Councilmember Doreen Pilchuck, who made the first motion to table at 6:42 p.m. “Or possibly whether to keep it. I would have to check the minutes, and the minutes are what we tabled.”

The evening began routinely, with the Pledge of Allegiance and approval of the previous meeting’s agenda. At 6:55 p.m., Councilmember Gary Hosmer raised a point of order concerning whether the table could be discussed before the council decided if it was a table or a “surface.” The chair ruled the point out of order, then in order, then “pending.”

By hour three, the council was debating whether the motion to table the discussion of the table could itself be tabled without first being discussed. Councilmember Hosmer argued that tabling an undiscussed motion would set a precedent. Councilmember Pilchuck countered that the precedent had already been set, though she could not recall by whom.

“Under Robert’s Rules, a motion to table is not debatable,” said Dr. Lyle Fenwick-Aguirre, a senior fellow in recursive parliamentary procedure at the Institute for Applied Agenda Studies at a community college he declined to name. “That the council debated it for two hours is, technically, a violation. That they debated the debate is, frankly, a new category of violation, and I am hoping to get it named after me.”

“We have made real progress tonight, and I would like that noted in the minutes, which I believe are tabled.”

The remark came from Council President Walt Brindlemoor at 11:20 p.m., shortly after a motion to adjourn was tabled on the grounds that it had not been properly seconded. A second was then offered, tabled, and reconsidered.

Public comment, scheduled for 7:00 p.m., was held at 11:41 p.m. to an audience of one. Resident Marcy Tolliver, who had come to ask about a pothole on Larch Street, was told her concern would be addressed after the table.

“I asked what table,” Tolliver said. “Four people started talking at once. I went to the vending machine and when I got back they were voting.”

At 12:09 a.m., the council reached its only unanimous decision of the night, agreeing to schedule a follow-up meeting to determine what had been tabled, by whom, and in what order. The meeting will be held next Tuesday at 6:30 p.m., pending a motion to table the scheduling.

City Clerk Bernadette Oakhollow said the physical table, which sat in the center of the chamber throughout the session, has been moved to a storage closet for safekeeping.

“Nobody has asked me to move it,” Oakhollow said. “But nobody has asked me not to, and at this point that feels like consensus.”