Charter Review Meeting
March 18, 2005

The meeting started at 8:05 a.m. The following members were present: Karen Pletz, Ricardo Herrera, Edie Ballweg, Mary Jo Longstreth, Terry Ward, Tom Brown, Dan Porrevecchio, Phil Snowden, Jack Holland, Frank Ellis, Aggie Stackhaus, Calvin Williford and Mark Thornhill. The following staff members were present: Greg Williams, Mayor’s Office; Bill Geary, Assistant City Attorney; Millie Crossland, City Clerk; LaTrisha Underwood, City Manager’s Office; and Mark Funkhouser, City Auditor.

Mr. Ward announced that the City Council voted and approved the time deadline extension requested by the commission until July. No correspondence had been received from the public regarding the Charter Review Commission (Mike White had e-mailed a statement with his input on the day’s topics because he wouldn’t be able to attend the meeting). The calendar had been revised to reflect the additional meeting dates and topics to be discussed. Two council members had responded to the invitation to appear before the commission. Councilman Jim Rowland sent his regrets about not being able to attend but he would be sending his written recommendations to the commission.

Tom Brown thanked staff for the written materials he has been receiving. The materials keep him well informed and up to date on what is happening.

Mr. Ward stated that the commission would be looking at three areas during the meeting. Form of government, term limits and Initiative, Referendum and Recall. He proposed that the handout be looked at in two parts and that the commission take critical items and work their way backward. There was no problem if a decision was put on hold; nothing had to be decided today as far as making recommendations.

Form of Government
Should the City Manager be made the CAO and the Mayor be made the CEO of the City? Recommendations from the 2001 Charter Review Commission were that the Mayor be given more power and responsibility. The Mayor would prepare the budget and submit it to the City Council. At a previous meeting, the Mayor asked that the current system stay in place.

Karen Pletz recommended leaving the form of government as it was.

Jack Holland asked to have a report compiled showing the structure of the government for the Unified Government in Kansas City, Kansas. He thought that it might be beneficial to see what kinds of changes were made.

Greg Williams would look into that matter and report back to the commission with his findings.

Dan Porrevecchio stated that the office is what the person in the position makes of it. He would vote for the recommendation as it stands, to leave the form of government as it is.

Tom Brown agreed with leaving the form of government as it stood. The commission has to look beyond the people in office today. Currently there are two strong people in the positions of Mayor and City Manager. There has to be a concern for what happens when these two people leave.

Mr. Porrovecchio also stated that the role of the City Council must be considered. The current charter doesn’t hinder the role of either the Mayor or City Manager.

Frank Ellis talked about the role of the CEO in relationship to handling city contracts.

Mr. Ward asked how deep the commission wanted the city officials role be in the everyday running of the city. Did the commission want department heads reporting to the Mayor? He stated that he thought that the consensus of the commission was to change the recommendation of the draft 2001 charter and that was to leave the city manager as the CEO of the city. In 1999 charter changes gave the Mayor more power.

Tom Brown asked for some clarification on whether the draft was a public document?

Aggie Stackhaus stated that the Mayor should have the first chance at the budget.

Karen Pletz said that the Mayor had made it clear that she would like to see things stay the way they were making no changes.

Bill Geary explained the budget flow. The City Manager proposed the budget. It then goes to the Mayor, who makes any changes he/she sees fit to do. It is then passed on to the City Council and they can either accept or choose to change recommendations. It is a public document.

Mark Thornhill asked what resources did the Mayor have at her disposal in 2001.

Bill Geary answered that the City Manager would assist the Mayor in preparing the budget. (If the Mayor was going to be CEO, then the mayor should be the one standing behind the document.) With the final budget the City Manager handed it to the City Council and Mayor.

Mr. Ward explained the reason for making the recommendation of having the Mayor as CEO. The Mayor could hire and fire the City Manager. The commission wanted to keep the City Manager/City Council form of government but give a stronger role to the Mayor.

Ms. Pletz stated that the process had gone full circle. The City Manager submits the budget to the City Council with recommendations from the Mayor.

Mark Thornhill remarked that it would be hard to give the Mayor the responsibility of the budget without having control of the departments.

Aggie Stackhaus stated that was the point. You either have a strong mayor or a strong city manager.

A brief discussion on the timeframe for which the city council has a chance to review the budget followed. Who approves the line items was also discussed. According to Bill Geary in 1999 there was a change to move the time back on approving the budget. So when a new council comes in there is very little time allowed to view the budget.

Calvin Williford stated that he was in favor of the Mayor submitting the budget. The Mayor is elected by the citizens and is responsible to the citizens of the city.

Mr. Ward asked for a show of hands on which form to recommend, the City Manager or Mayor.

Jack Holland wanted to wait until the information requested regarding the Unified Government in Wyandotte County was received and reviewed.

Dan Porrevecchio reminded the commission that to change the budget process would be to change the current charter process. If the commission changes the route they were indicating during the meeting, then they would be talking about creating a strong mayor form of government..

Karen Pletz restated that the citizens and mayor had already decided on the subject. She felt that the commission was talking about moving into another form of government. The original recommendation was to stay the same as it currently was.

Dan Porrevecchio suggested looking at best practices.

Frank Ellis suggested looking at the National League of Cities. Have the staff bring this information back to the commission to be reviewed.

The information would be available by the next meeting.

To hire/fire the City Manager. The Mayor requested that this item be left alone.

City Council Structure
It was resolved that there should be six and six, six in-district and six at-large. Seven out of thirteen being elected at-large makes sure that the well being of the total city is being served. Various numbers were considered but the final recommendation was to leave this item as it stood.

Residency
The issue of redistricting and how it would affect residency was raised.

Bill Geary answered that the charter allowed for redistricting.

Mark Thornhill stated that the charter allowed for a short-term solution. What type of time line does the charter refer to?

Mr. Ward suggested leaving this item open until documents relating to elections are received.

Mr. Thornhill suggested referring to the National League of Cities for guidelines.

A straw vote was taken on whether to leave the recommendations as they stood or to change. The question was “Do we want to continue forward with recommendation as it was the last time?” Two votes were taken. Both votes indicated that the commission was in favor of leaving the recommendation as it was
Term Limits
For City Council and Mayor the existing charter says two terms.

Mike White sent a statement saying that he didn’t believe in term limits.

Mayor Barnes stated that she felt that three lifetime terms or no term limits would be better.

Bill Geary stated that the council didn’t want to change term limits so they dumped it. It was too controversial an item..

Phil Snowden suggested making this a separate item on the ballot. Then maybe people will agree or disagree with the language.

Aggie Stackhaus agreed that this should not be under administrative changes. This shouldn’t be put on with other issues.

Calvin Williford stated that he support making this change effective on 2008. If current members wanted to come back and run it would be okay. Otherwise it would look like this issue was self-serving of the mayor and council.

Mr. Ward asked if the commission wanted to move forward with three term limits standing alone as a separate issue as a recommendation to the council.

A recommendation was approved to present three term limits to the council and let them stand as a separate issue. Although the commission was in favor of three term limits the majority was opposed to having an effective date in 2008.

A short discussion on 30 month term followed. Bill Geary gave a brief history of how this section of the charter came about. The consensus was to drop the issue and move on to the next item.

Recall
The recommendation was that the petition must state a reason why the recall was requested. Everything remained the same.

Bill Geary stated that the change required that there be a specific reason showing some sort of council misconduct. The recall would be based on actions.

City Clerk Millie Crossland informed the commission that she could only find two instances of recall attempts against city council members. The election held in 2005 was the first recall that had made it through the entire recall process. The process is not an easy one.

Aggie Stackhaus and Terry Ward recommended leaving the item open for now.

Calvin Williford felt that the issue was one that was open to abuse. He opposed any changes. He stated that there were other issues that needed addressing.

A motion to change the recommendation or leave it as it stood was approved. A vote was taken and the recommendation to leave it as it stood as approved.

Referendum
Bill Geary explained the difference between a referendum and an initiative. The referendum stops the effective date of an ordinance and an initiative creates legislation.

The last recommendation was to make no changes to the referendum process. The commission voted to make no changes to the referendum process.

Initiative
Discussion on the initiative process followed. With the initiative petition the public wants something to happen without council action. The last recommendation was not to change the 5% signature required. However the Charter did not state where the 5% of signatures should come from. The recommendation had been that the 5% threshold for signatures should be achieved in four of the six districts.

Phil Snowden suggested getting the consensus of the whole city instead of just one location.

Karen Pletz suggested putting this item on a ballot as a separate issue.

Terry Ward agreed with Ms. Pletz. He would not change the recommendation and would leave item as a separate ballot issue.

Dan Porrevecchio stated that there was some confusion on the 5% per district and the number of voters in each district.

Edie Ballweg suggested waiting until public hearings started and get public input.

Mr. Porrevecchio felt that the issue was communicating the thoughts of the commission. The recommendations were confusing. He suggested having a draft of the wording done by staff.

Mark Thornhill suggested doing a legal review of the numbers per district.

Karen Pletz agreed with the review of numbers. The review could be used as guidance.

Frank Ellis suggested making the change by ordinance instead of a charter change.

Terry Ward suggested coming back to the issue.

Ms. Pletz asked that there be clearer language associated with this issue when the commission returned to the item.

Bill Geary stated that he had six items to come back with before the commission.

The meeting adjourned at 10:12 a.m.