Update: After Council Lesson on Decorum, Civility

6:59 p.m. Meeting adjourned. Shortest meeting in Canton in some time.

6:59 p.m.: After decorum discussion, Beresford decided to refrain from speaking about mayoral assistant who threatened to sue. I will ask to pass, Beresford said.

6:39 p.m.: Rules already being circumvented. Hobgood bangs gavel and instructs council member John Beresford to direct comments at him, not city manager Scott Wood. Everyone laughs.

6:33 p.m.: Decorum discussion ends. Up later on in the meeting: The mayoral assistant who threatened to sue the city and all the council members. Stay tuned.

6:32 p.m.: If we stay in line with what the charter says, we'll do a better job, Hobgood said.

6:31 p.m.: The city attorney is our parliamentarian, Hobgood said. We'll be looking to him to interrupt us.

6:30 p.m.: We ought to be courteous to one another and respectful of other's opinions, Hobgood said.

6:28 p.m.: Discussion of parliamentary procedure commences. Mayor Gene Hobgood: We have Robert Rules of Order. If we go by it that will take care of all the problems we may have encountered. One of the strongest parts of that procedure is decorum. Everything flows through the mayor.

6:18 p.m.: Personality differences should not be evident in the conduct of the city's business and each and every council member should show courtesy and respect to every other council member, first speaker said.

6:17 p.m.: Put aside all personal conflicts, first speaker said.

I saw no great urgency to justify the interruption that occurred at the last meeting, first speaker said.

I was tempted to say something at the time, but I would have been out of order, first speaker said.

I was concerned by the undertones of personality differences during the (Jan. 20) meeting, first speaker said.

Council member Pat Tanner received the prestigious Certificate of Excellence from the Georgia Municipal Training Institute (at the Georgia Municipal Association’s Annual Mayors’ Day Conference in Atlanta on January 23, first speaker said.

just after 6 p.m.: Public comment underway.

After meetings on and spiraled out of control, parliamentary procedure is on Thursday's council's agenda.