More light has been shed on the West U City Council’s decision to remove amendments to its city charter from the May ballot.
The council recently decided to postpone a vote on the charter amendments until November 2014, citing opposition from residents. The council said it would bring the amendments back for a vote after suggesting that the Charter Review Committee hold public meetings to discuss their recommendations.
According to information obtained through an open records request, the city council received three e-mails from residents who were all against the recommendation to have the city secretary report to the city manager.
Under West U’s charter, the city secretary reports to the city council, but by ordinance, the city manager does have a responsibility to oversee the city secretary.
One of the e-mails was from former Mayor Bob Kelly who appeared to threaten the council with a “public campaign” if they chose to move forward with placing the charter amendment regarding the city secretary on the May election ballot.
“I feel strongly enough about this matter, as I believe many of our citizens will when brought to their attention, that I will organize a full scale public campaign against it immediately if that change is intended to be placed on the May ballot,” Kelly said in his e-mail to city council. “It is beyond me how this proposed changed [sic] got to this point and why.”
Kelly’s reasons for being against the amendment were that “no changes should be made to the city charter unless there is a ‘compelling’ need to do so” and that “if it an’t [sic] broke don’t fix it,” Kelly also wrote in his e-mail to council.
“Please advise asap if the intent is to move forward with such revision,” Kelly wrote.
Kelly told InstantNewsWestU.com that the council needs to think long and hard before bringing the amendments back to the voters. He also said they would need a lot of “powerful people” behind them to have the amendments pass.
“Council needs to think long and hard before they put it up to the citizens to vote,” he said. “If it’s defeated it gives council a black eye.”
Kelly said that if the council puts it up for a vote, they are in effect supporting the amendments.
Many members of council said that the amendments are “excellent” but that they thought it was important to get information out about the proposed changes.
Both City Manager Michael Ross and City Secretary Thelma Lenz told InstantNewsWestU.com that they had no opinion about the proposed amendment.
According to the Charter Review Committee’s report, there have been problems in the past with the city secretary reporting to the city council because they are not always present at city hall to supervise.
“Section 6.03 provides that the city secretary is appointed by and serves at the discretion of the city council. In the past, this has created problems in that the council positions are not full-time positions, and therefore council members are not present at city hall on a full time basis to supervise the city secretary. The committee reviewed the charters of other cities in Harris County and concluded that providing for the city secretary to report to the city manager, similar to the department heads of the city, would provide for a better organizational and management structure. This could be accomplished most sufficiently by listing the city secretary along with the city’s department heads in Section 6.02 of the Charter,” according to the report.
Charter Review Committee Chair Phyllis Cohen told InstantNewsWestU.com that the committee took what other cities were doing into account and that their recommendation was unanimous.
According to the city’s charter history, West U voters did not approve a charter that adopted the current council-manager form of government until 1983.
West U had a problem with a city secretary during Mayor Bob Kelly’s time in office, which resulted in him signing a severance agreement.
Kelly is right. The proposed amendment was a genuinely bad idea as anyone familiar with internal controls of an organization can see. It is difficult to see how the proposal got that far, but it is certainly not the only time Council has done things that are clearly not in the public’s best interest. Hard to know sometimes if these things are intentional or just boneheaded.
Kelly signed the agreement to pay the old city secretary to leave because she ran Amuck. How can Kelly say there wasn’t a problem? The process was broken.
Thelma Lenz does not need to be supervised. ff anybody needs to be supervised, it is the City Manager. Actually, the previous City Secretary DID NOT run Amuck. She was a loyal West U employee for many years and was forced to resign before all hell broke loose at City Hall.
According to the City of West U Organizational Structure on the website, the City Secretary is on the same level as Appointed Boards, Commissions, Judges & Prosecutors, City Attorney and City Manager who all report to the Mayor and City Council and to each other. The job description of the City Secretary requires interaction by everyone on these higher levels of management. Based on the efficiency of the operation of the city and the consensus of what is said and written about West U, the present arrangement is a success.
I thought in a Democracy you were supposed to get elected before you make policy!? And policies are made for positions, not people. Some day Thelma may not be there, so we need a policy independent of personalities. Not to mention, anyone who has worked on a part-time board knows the need for a full-time supervisor or personnel.
The people on the charter review committee are among the most respected people in West u. If they think changes are needed, then I support the changes.
Who are the people on the Charter Review Committee, and how were they chosen (or appointed). Can any of them benefit from a change in the City Charter and how would we know they are the “most respected people in West U”??? If we knew the real reasons behind all of these changes, we may not respect some of these people any more. Just speculating . . .