Charter Review Meeting
April 15, 2005

The meeting started at 8:15 a.m. and was attended by Karen Pletz, Edie Ballweg, Ricardo Herrera, Terry Ward, Alice Ellison, Aggie Stackhaus, Jack Holland, Kelley Martin, and Bishop Mark Tolbert. Staff members present were Bill Geary and LaTrisha Underhill. The topics of discussion were to be: Municipal Court and Housing Court, “unlawful differences” and Department Structure.

Terry Ward announced that due to unforeseen circumstances the City Manager would be unable to present his recommendations to the commission. Because of this the topic regarding Department Structure would be held until the next meeting.

LaTrisha Underhill thought that the City Manager would be back in town next week and would have the opportunity to review recommendations from various department heads and should be able to submit his recommendations at the next meeting.

Mr. Ward reminded Ms. Underhill that the next meeting would be taking place next Friday, on April 22, not in two weeks.

Ms. Underhill stated that she would make sure that the City Manager would be aware of the next meeting date.

Mr. Ward expressed the condolences from the commission to the City Manager. He then went over the schedule for the community meetings taking place at various community centers. Due to conflicts in schedules several meeting dates need to be changed. Mr. Ward would talk with Greg Williams about rescheduling dates

Because of the low commission turnout several items that could be discussed would be put on hold until more members could be present to discuss or debate them. There were a couple of items that could be discussed after topic items had been dealt with.

Judge Michael McAdam, Municipal Court Presiding Judge, Pro Tem, spoke on behalf of Municipal Court Presiding Judge Joseph Locascio, who had been asked to respond to certain questions asked of some of the Municipal Court Judges. On the issue of retirement, the issue is still up in the air about the retirement age for municipal judges. There are at least three different versions of the retirement age for a judge. One Charter provision states the retirement age is 65. Another Charter provision seems to contradict that by saying that a judge, once elected, shall serve a four year term, unless removed from office, making no reference to the age of a judge when re-elected. Missouri state statutes puts the retirement age for Circuit and Appellate Court Judges at age 70. There is also a Missouri statute that allows municipal judges to serve until age 75. The judges of the Kansas City Municipal Court are contemplating filing a friendly suit with the City to try to settle this issue. But there is a conflict within the Charter that needs to be resolved. Judge McAdam also pointed out, in response to a question, that no other city employees have a mandatory retirement age.

Mr. Ward explained that the commission could look at resolving these issues in their capacity as a review commission. He asked if the members wanted to discuss these issues or let the law department look into the issues and report back to the commission. At that point the commission could discuss the findings.

Bill Geary stated that he would like to have the opportunity to review the issues first.

Judge McAdam stated that he would like to have the Housing Court stay. He had a conversation with the City Manager about issues dealing with the court administrator. The policy making for Municipal Court goes to the court en banc. While some suggest the administration and staffing, etc should be under the courts as well, the judges are not displeased with the management of the municipal court. This is not a pressing issue right now and they are not requesting changes.

Mr. Ward talked about the question of amending the charter regarding Housing Court came up during the last Charter Review Commission. The 2001 recommendation was to remove Housing Court from the Charter. It was hoped that the courts would retain Housing Court as a separate entity and use resources as needed. The commission was not attempting to tell the court how to do its work. Nothing was intended to be changed, it was just having the Charter be less prescriptive. Was it important to mention Housing Court in the Charter?

Judge McAdam talked about being the first Housing Court judge. The Housing Court Judge had been rotated every six months. A system was set up to have one judge do the Housing Court exclusively. (The Housing Judge is now Judge Wayne Cagle.) He thought that should be kept in the Charter. Any changes would likely take the system back to prior to 1987 when the Charter was amended to create an exclusive Housing Court division within the Kansas City Municipal Court.

Aggie Stackhaus agreed with the judge. While she was a proponent of the 2001 Charter proposal, she would now leave it alone.

Bishop Mark Tolbert asked why the judge had to be part-time if it were part of the charter. Why couldn’t the judge’s job include courtroom duties from other courts? Was there an area in the court where the caseload could be added to that of the Housing Court judge?

Judge McAdam gave some statistics on the number of cases handled by the Housing Court judge compared to other courtroom judges. Because the caseload is approximately half the caseload of other judges, the position is part-time. Back in the 1980s the citizens wanted one judge to address neighborhood issues. They didn’t want the judge to handle criminal cases, domestic violence or prostitution cases.

Mr. Ward asked if there was any more discussion. Did the commission want to leave Housing Court as it currently was in the charter?

Bishop Tolbert asked how you would get the judge to the next lowest number if assigned additional court dockets to the caseload.

Judge McAdam explained that the judges that handle domestic violence also handle traffic violation cases. If you put the two together it would still be lower than the average caseload of the judges of the court. It could be possible to add traffic to the Housing Court docket.

Aggie Stackhaus reminded the commission that Domestic Violence court victims don’t want to be in Housing Court. The issues involved with getting domestic violence victims to come to court are numerous and the idea of mixing the two courts together would cause victims to stop showing up for court.

There was a motion to leave Housing Court specified in the Charter. The motion was seconded, voted on and carried.

Kelley Martin wanted some input on deficiencies in the court where citizens could be better served.

Judge McAdam replied that there are some deficiencies now but are being worked on. The court is trying to figure out how to remedy those problems. The court now has an aggressive schedule of meetings. The court is also trying to come up with a better docketing schedule. The process will be on-going. He also described the process of handling add-ons. This is where an individual appears before the court, although not on any docket, and wants to settle any outstanding court actions. There may be an outstanding warrant for the individual.

Judge McAdam also stated that the court administrator reports to John Franklin of the City Manager’s Office. The judges give direction to the Court Administrator. He couldn’t think of any time when a City Manager had gone against what the judges want out of their Court Administrator. His opinion was not to seek a Charter change regarding the court administrator.

Kelley Martin agreed that since the Court Administrator is under the responsibility of the Presiding Judge and City Manager it should stay where it was.

The recommendation was to leave it alone.

Bill Geary stated that there would be a number of issues that would impact departments other than the court. The Law Department works with various departments throughout the city. You have to consider the effects of the budget. You have to weigh issues by how the budget would go.

Mr. Martin stated that he would be reluctant to make changes without further information. There are several inefficiencies that need to be addressed.

Aggie Stackhaus agreed that the courts needed to work on their antiquated computer system. Once that has been done and is working then you know if other recommended system changes would work.

Mr. Geary said that the department had the money allocated for upgrades. The court management system would be a wonderful improvement.

Karen Pletz suggested that no action be taken on this item.

Aggie Stackhaus moved to change retirement ages for judges to 75 and the statement on retirement. The motion did not receive a second.

Mr. Geary said that in 2001 the commission addressed the same thing. The commission has the right language to fix the Charter conflicts if they want to stay with what the proposed Charter change says. State statute says age 75 for non-charter cities. Charter cities can set Charter retirement age. So does the commission want to change from 65 to 70 or 75?

Suggestions of age 70 were made. A motion to use the language in the proposed Charter Review but to use the age of 70 was made. The motion was seconded and voted on. The motion carried.

Edie Ballweg announced that a copy of the model charter was available.

Terry Ward stated that a list of items for review was available and could be reviewed because of cancellation of other agenda items. The first item was review of initiative petitions. Bill Geary had been asked to draft information for the commission. A recommendation of a 30 day review was made. The question is what happens if you make the review permissive?

Mr. Geary explained that if the Council makes changes to a petition, the petitioners have a right to ask that the original petition be placed on the ballot. On the issue of initiatives, the City Attorney may review. The first review is for 30 days. Any changes to the petition would require a review up to an additional 15 days. Each additional review would be 15 days. The Law Department doesn’t have a copy of the petition. The department leaves it up to the petitioner to make sure that a copy of the petition is provided to the Law Department.

Alternative ways of handling this issue were discussed. Option One added it to the Law Department’s responsibilities. Option Two changed the initiative petition provisions. Alice Ellison made a motion to use Option One.

Terry Ward clarified that the motion was to put in a permissive review by adding responsibility to the Law Department.

The motion was seconded. The motion carried.

Mr. Ward stated that the commission was not in position to discuss the remaining items because of the low attendance. Therefore there being no additional business to discuss the meeting was adjourned at 9:25 a.m.