The Charter Review Commission ended its assessment of the city’s current constitution last night by unanimously recommending to the City Council a document that maintains the current 3-3-1 City Council alignment.
How council members would be elected was the last major unfinished business facing the commission. Two weeks ago a motion to elect all council members from six single member districts with only the mayor elected at large failed on a 3-3 vote. It was decided to reconsider the idea at last night’s session when all seven members might be present. Ironically, only six members voted on the motions last night as well; Ben Estrada joined the meeting an hour or so after the debate on council districts ended.
The idea of single member districts was not discussed last night although the fifth item on meeting’s agenda was "Motion to amend Section 3.01 to six single member districts with the mayor at-large to take effect after the next redistricting based on census." That motion, in itself, presented some problems because another charter review commission will be appointed between now and "the next redistricting based on census."
Regardless, the commission ignored the agenda and, instead, chairman Joe Bacon opened the debate by offering a motion to maintain the current 3-3-1 alignment, three council persons elected from single member districts and three others, along with the mayor, elected at large. That motion also failed on a 3-3 vote with commissioners Paula Alvarez and Fred Rothert siding with Bacon and vice chair Jo Fenety and commissioners Brad Growt and Kent Sheckler voting against.
Growt said he was especially concerned the current way of electing city council members could concentrate too much power in one section of town if it managed to mobilize its citizens to elect the mayor, all three at large council members plus the single member representative from that area. He said he became alarmed about that possibility when he saw that number of individuals who participated in a recent Plum Creek HOA election almost equaled the total number of voters in the most recent municipal elections.
As a compromise, Growt and Sheckler suggested a 4-2-1 alignment, however Fenety joined Bacon, Alvarez and Rothert in voting against that idea. Then the commissioner decided just to drop the entire issue which, of course, has the result of leaving it just like it is.
After approving other minor changes, most of them typographical mistakes contained in the charter, the commissioners voted to present their recommended document to the City Council for it to consider at its meeting next Tuesday. It is expected the council might, at that meeting, have some questions for Bacon, but, more than likely, will send it to the city’s attorneys to see if passes legal muster before council members conduct their own more in-depth review of the document.
The commissioners also passed a resolution to have its recommended charter be posted on the city’s web site. I am seeking to learn when that might happen.
The Council has many options. It could kill the entire document, it could make its own changes, it could ask the commission to reconvene to make additional changes, or it could accept the document as approved by the city attorneys. It is possible that if the council just doesn’t dump the entire document, it could still be put to the voters for their approval as early as this November. However, with budget discussions about to dominate the council’s attention, it seems more likely a vote on revising the charter will take place during next May’s elections, if at all.
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