The Kyle Report

The Kyle Report

Wednesday, July 22, 2020

Council adds charter discussion to Saturday budget workshop

City council members agreed Tuesday to add a discussion on what changes to the city charter they will recommend to voters following a workshop already scheduled for Saturday, Aug. 1, for the purpose of rolling out the 2020-21 fiscal year budget.

Converting which is usually an 8 a.m.-to-noon budget workshop into what is possibly going to be an all-day marathon meeting became necessary because of conflicts in council members’ schedules and deadlines on when charter revision elections may be called. The Aug. 1 date was the only one all council members were available to meet and still satisfy the statutory requirements for calling an election.

Council members got a glimpse of the recommended changes proposed by the charter review commission during their regularly scheduled agenda meeting Tuesday. The only changes that seem to give members any pause were ones involving polling places for special elections, which were largely insignificant, and Section 3.09, the controversial charter provision regarding compensation for council members. The charter review commission recommended the “council appointed committee” created by the last charter change that is assigned to consider and recommend changes in compensation be replaced by a “committee consisting of nine members, with seven council appointees and two non-council appointed members, selected randomly by the city secretary from applicants meeting qualifications of elective office.” Review commission chair Diane Hervol told the council this recommendation was made “to give citizens a little more buy-in.”

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