West U residents may have nothing to vote on in the upcoming May 11 election.
The West U City Council has pulled the charter review amendments from the ballot and will bring them back for a special election in November 2014. As of today, no one but the current city council has filed for the election and there is a possibility that the election may be cancelled.
The decision to postpone a vote on the charter amendments was made by council Monday night after receiving some opposition from residents.
Council heard a report from its Charter Review Committee last November, when the group proposed revisions to seven sections of the city’s charter.
The amendments include: increase the number of successive terms permitted for mayor and council members from two to three; increase the number of signatures required on initiative and referendum petitions from three percent to five percent of the qualified voters of the city; limit the four-fifth vote requirement to a six-year period; require the city secretary to report to the city manager; change reference of “Commissioners” to “Council Members.”
To view the Charter Review Committee’s report, click here.
The city council is going to ask the Charter Review Committee to hold public meetings to educate the public on their proposed changes before the changes come back to voters.
“We’ve been very strong on getting as much public information as we could,” Mayor Bob Fry said Monday night. “There’s some awfully good stuff in here that we don’t want to lose.”
Many members of council said the amendments are “excellent” but that they thought it was important to get information out about the proposed changes.
Some of the charter amendments probably do not serve the city well.
With a City Manager form of government it makes sense to have the City Secretary report directly to Council. This reporting line provides at least some chance that Council will be advised of any wrong doing by the City Manager since the City Manager and City Secretary provide a “watchdog” roll with regard to each other. There was an incident several years ago in which the City Manager found the City Secretary’s actions to be inappropriate and the Secretary was dismissed. Under different circumstances the system could have worked the other way. With the proposed change in reporting line there is significantly less chance that any wrongdoing by the City Manager would be brought to the attention of Council.
The two term limit has served the City well. Keeps representation of the public more current with new perspectives being represented every few years.
3 to 5% for initiative and referendum petitions, a 66% increase in required signatures. That is outrageous. What is council fearful of. Thats what makes this city great, we can have citizens have petitions signed for whatever issues they want. Lets lower it to 2%. I will fight this one…