Charter Review Meeting
April 22, 2005

The meeting started at 8:07 a.m. and was attended by the following commission members: Karen Pletz, Edie Ballweg, Pat Jordan, Ricardo Herrera, Jack Holland, Terry Ward, Joseph Moreland, Dan Porrevecchio, Mark Thornhill, Aggie Stackhaus, Carolyn Vellar, Jim Rice, Frank Ellis, Kelley Martin, and Mark Tolbert.

Staff members present were: Greg Williams, Billy Geary, Mark Funkhouser and LaTrisha Underwood.
The topics for discussion were: A presentation by Councilwoman Becky Nace, Homeland Security, Bond Issuing Process, Purchasing and contracting and PILOT’s-enterprise funds.

Terry Ward announced that there would be some conflicts with some of the community meetings and that he would get someone else to chair those meetings. There should be 4 or 5 meetings scheduled and there should be a good turnout at the meetings. The City Manager should have his recommendations by the next meeting.

Councilwoman Becky Nace thanked the members for serving on the commission. Working off the last charter review recommendations Councilwoman Nace addressed several issues that were of concern to her. The first dealt with the City Auditor/Internal Auditor positions inside of City Hall. She suggested that the commission look at models of other cities and compare the wording. She wanted to make sure that these positions were not subject to political pressure or influence. She wants to see this positions remain independent and in no way under political pressure from inside or outside of City Hall. She asked that the City Auditor cooperate with the commission. She wanted to make sure that these jobs were protected.

On the issue of retirement ages for judges, Councilwoman Nace supports a raise in the retirement age to 70. On the subject of the Petition Process, the process should remain simple. She doesn’t support geography being criteria for ballot issues that affect the entire city.

Earnings & Profits Tax . Filing of federal and state tax returns are required but not required to be filed with the City. The City should be allowed to receive copies of tax returns filed with other tax jurisdictions. There should be some type of legislation that would require taxpayers to file state or federal returns with the city for comparison of reporting information.

Another issue was exempting military personnel that are on active duty from having to pay earnings taxes. She talked about members of the military in active duty but not legally domiciled in Kansas City receiving personal tax bills. They are required to give an address for emergency or contact reason and are using a Kansas City address (possibly a relative) so they are receiving these bills from the City. She would like to see the commission address that issue of exemption.

College students were also discussed. For those students who work while attending school outside of Kansas City, they receive tax bills on all earnings made during the time they are in school. Some students are presented with back tax bills for the entire time they were in school. Technically they were not residing within the city limits for some portion of the years while attending school. Legislation was passed approximately four years ago to address these issues but Councilwoman Nace was afraid that these people might slip through the cracks. She would most definitely like to see a waiver of earnings tax for military personnel.

The number of commission members for the Board of Parks and Recreation should be left to the discretion of the mayor in office during a particular period of time. The number of park board members was changed in 1999. Since the mayor appoints the members of the board, it should be the mayor who determines how many people serve on the board. Councilwoman Nace suggested leaving that open so that the council doesn’t have to go back to the voters whenever the mayor desires to change in the number of members to the board.

On the issue of term limits, it should be revisited by the voting process. Talking with constituents there seemed to be mixed and varying opinions. However the council is elected by the voters for a specified amount of time. Three terms gives better representation to the people. It also shows a commitment of the councilperson. You can lose good people with term limits. However she did not believe that a “sitting council” should vote in a pay increase or increase term limits for themselves.

Calvin Williford asked if Councilwoman Nace supported lifetime term limits.

Councilwoman Nace answered that she couldn’t say that she did. The voters should be the ones to decide what they want. She believes that it is difficult to get an incumbent out of office. Term limits gives a break.

Jim Rice asked if she was suggesting that the commission leaves the subject alone. That the commission should let the petition process decide what to do?

Councilwoman Nace stated that is was the voters right to determine how to handle this issue.

Terry Ward thanked Councilwoman Nace for coming.

The next issue was Homeland Security and if it should be made part of the Charter.

There was some discussion on this item. Jim Rice stated that the Charter should not be dealing with transitory issues. Aggie Stackhaus offered the thought that if the federal government can’t deal with the problem adequately why would the commission think that they could? Bill Geary stated that it was not necessarily that the commission couldn’t deal with the issue and get it right; the problem was that the City doesn’t control the police department. The 2001 recommendations dealt with the Fire Department and Emergency Preparedness. But you can’t regulate that which you have no control over. Frank Ellis didn’t think that this was an issue that needed to be determined by the commission, but it was an important issue. It is something that needs to be discussed. Ricardo Herrera asked if the Health Department would have a plan. Bill Geary said yes. The city has an Emergency Preparedness Department mentioned in the Charter. Jim Rice also stated that the city operates at will in an emergency situation. To codify how people should act in an emergency is ludicrous. By consensus, the commission agreed that the charter should remain silent on the issue of Homeland Security.

Bill Geary stated that there had been a question on bond issuances. The question asked was if the city could negotiate bond sales? The answer was yes. He explained the process to the commission. With negotiated bond sales the city has the opportunity to pick who is going to purchase bonds early. There is a question of speed involved in the process.

Jack Holland explained that the proposed recommendation was too broad but was located in Section 831. It only dealt with General Obligation Bonds. It was directing the City Manager to use best practices.

Jim Rice asked about the interest rates on negotiated bonds.

Mr. Holland answered that the rates were a question of market and timing. The information was taken from a municipality template and also from Lees Summit.

Talk turned to debt management. Karen Pletz said she didn’t think that the city had adopted a policy. It becomes an issue of integrity. She thought that the council should adopt a policy on the issue. Maybe the commission could do something that would require the council to adopt a policy.

Mark Funkhouser, City Auditor, suggested making changes to the 2001 charter draft. The recommendations are good. The City Council has never adopted a debt management policy. Put it in the Charter. It might require them to do it. Put it in the rules that the council be required to do this annually.

Mark Thornhill agreed that the commission change the recommendation to including wording to that affect.

Terry Ward explained that the change of wording would accomplish three things. The first would be flexibility; the second would be balance and the third would be an open, viable process.

Mark Thornhill asked that staff come back to the next meeting with a short insert, a draft of the language as a disclaimer.

A motion was made to ask staff to draft additional language to Section 831. The motion was approved and carried.

Purchasing and contracting
Terry Ward explained that this section was needed in order for the city to create flexibility to develop a purchasing department. He wanted to know if the commission wanted to create less restrictive areas in the charter. Two issues are involved:

1. Taking purchasing department out of the charter and
2. Let purchasing float at the discretion of the city manager.

Bill Geary stated that in 2001 the recommendation was to retain purchasing in the Finance Department. You would have to eliminate purchasing from charter.

Jim Rice stated that both models have been used. As long as the language is left and is transparent, he suggested leaving it alone.

Mark Funkhouser said that KC GO had made the recommendation of setting a cap on the limits of contracts. They were looking at Best Practices. The issue is of where the Council and City Manager want to draw the line on approvals. It is an on-going process. It was a negotiated process. You don’t want to create a policy that would tie the City Manager’s hands.

Mr. Ward felt that the City Council should have the flexibility to set code or ordinances by which the City Manager can operate.

Mr. Geary said that it was determined that contractors either have very small or very large contracts with the city. Most of the construction contractors have a threshold over one million dollars.

A discussion on MBE/WBE followed.

Pat Jordan said that she would like to see language in the charter that addressed fairness without mentioning certain programs. She asked that language be adopted. There should be some language to add wording to the charter.

Mr. Ward thought that some wording could be added to the preamble of the charter.

Ms. Jordan explained that she was just asking for a chance to explore the issue of somehow putting inclusive language in the charter without naming names. She just wanted Mr. Geary to look at the language.

Mr. Rice agreed with Ms. Jordan. If the commission could find the right language, it would be wonderful. These types of issues are not going to go away. Issues of disparity need to be reviewed and language needs to be crafted for the ages to come.

Karen Pletz again suggested looking at the preamble to the Charter. The spirit of the language should guide the Charter. Would the appropriate place be in the preamble of the Charter? She didn’t believe that you had to be specific but the spirit was needed.

Calvin Williford stated that inclusiveness was what was needed.

Edie Ballweg stated that she was satisfied with wording for the preamble but would like to see the flexibility there. She said that she would like to eliminate specifying where purchasing should reside. She suggested omitting section 406.7 and 1211.

A motion to eliminate section 406.7 and 1211 was made. The motion carried.

Ms. Pletz asked whether it would make sense to have ordinances drafted so that the public could see the actual new ordinances before they had to make a decision to support the charter with their vote. It was noted that this would create a great deal of work. The former charter amendment allowed almost 18 months to accomplish that task. Getting it done before a vote in November would be a daunting task. There were questions raised about whether that effort would be a wise investment before the voters were even given the opportunity to vote on the charter. Mr. Geary asked if the commission wanted ordinances just to be drafted, or to have them enacted conditionally. After the discussion, the consensus was to not start the drafting process prior to the passage of the new charter.

Mr. Ward reminded everyone that nothing had been adopted with regard to changes to the preamble. Issues had been raised that needed answers or clarification.

Kelley Martin wanted to know when the preamble would be revisited. It was noted that it would be added to the agenda for later consideration.

Greg Williams discussed the meeting schedule for the month of May and June. It stated that at the end of the May 6th meeting, staff would give Bill Geary some directions to go back to July 6, 2001 recommendations and make it a 2005 recommendation. The time during June 3 through 18th would be used to discuss the proposed recommendations.

Mr. Geary stated that he shouldn’t have a draft before the public hearings start.

Mr. Williams said that during the last public hearings term limits and the initiative process were the main areas of concentration, but it did make sense to wait until the conclusion of the public meetings before finally drafting a 2005 proposal.

Mr. Ward said that there would be a discussion on the preamble on June 3rd. On June 17th there should be a full document to review. Consideration of all issues that the public had during the hearings would be discussed.

Pat Jordan asked how the commission intended to handle the recommendations made by Councilwoman Nace. Would those items she referred to be placed on future agendas? The City Auditor, Earnings and Profits Tax and Term Limits were concerns of Councilwoman Nace.

Greg Williams and Terry Ward would make up an agenda schedule for discussion. They would try to slot all items to be visited into future agendas.
Mr. Ward wanted to make sure that there was going to be good representation at all of the community meetings.

Kelley Martin suggested contacting neighborhood associations and chambers of commerce about promoting the meetings. There would be the potential for increasing attendance at the meetings.

Redistricting -"unlawful differences"
Mr. Geary stated that when you had more than a 10% difference disparity of residents in a district, that district is unconstitutional. He referred to the 2000 census. Redistricting would be declared unconstitutional if it was not done within the 10 years between census counts. The question would be when would be responsible for doing it. It would have to be done when you have a 10% variation in population. After discussion and clarification, it was resolved that no action needed to be taken on this matter.

The meeting adjourned at 9:59 a.m.