Just as the debate was to move to the School Committee, Turkel proposed postponing the vote until the Dec. 18 meeting.

The committee rules allow a postponement of the agenda when a member is absent if any one member proposes it.

Many audience members expressed their disappointment that the long-awaited vote would not take place.

After trying twice to suspend the rules in order to discuss the vote’s postponement, committee member Joseph Grassi, supported by colleague Alfred Fantini, shouted his disgust with the proceedings.

“This is not good government,” Fantini said. “You have seen in person this is not good government.”

After calls of “Order! Order!” and gavel banging, the session was called to recess.

Turkel’s motivations for postponing the vote were immediately questioned.

Members of the School Committee claimed that Turkel and the other Cambridge Civic Association-endorsed members of the Committee arranged for Segat to stay home in order to delay the vote.

This, some claimed, would allow Turkel to introduce and pass her amendments at the last minute, without sufficient debate. They said Turkel would then be able to pass a version of the Controlled Choice plan tailored to her own agenda.

“This is sleazeball politics,” said Grassi, calling the postponement a “crafty hidden plan.”

But according to Committee Member Nancy Walser, Segat was having a root canal.

Turkel said she postponed the vote because she wants to introduce a set of amendments to the plan, and feared she would not have the votes to pass it without Segat’s support.

Turkel’s amendments, introduced at a workshop open to the public, propose a gradual increase in the involvement of socioeconomic factors in school choice, and using gender and siblings as factors when assigning schools.

Some claimed that Turkel has not adequately explained her amendments in public so that she could keep them under wraps until the last minute.

Walser and Committee member Denise Simmons defended Turkel’s postponement of the vote.