Charter Review Commission Meeting
July 8, 2005


The meeting started at 8:08 a.m. with the following members attending: Terry Ward, Kelley Martin, Ricardo Herrera, Bishop Mark Tolbert, Alice Ellison, Dan Porrevecchio, Tom Brown, Mike White, Jack Holland, Calvin Williford, Aggie Stackhaus, Jim Rice and Carolyn Vellar.

Staff members present were: Bill Geary, Law Department; Greg Williams, Mayor’s Office; Mark Funkhouser, City Auditor and LaTrisha Underhill, City Manager’s Office.

The commission would be working from the July 8th draft in reviewing the remaining pages of the Charter.

Mr. Ward stated that the goal was to finish up the review of the Charter changes. There would be a review of five items set aside for further discussion. The commission would also be looking at pages 1 – 55 for additional review (these were pages reviewed in the June 3rd draft). Review of potential discussion items. The base charter would not include two items. And lastly there would be discussion on items 5 & 6 of the agenda (term limits and initiative petition).

Aggie Stackhaus said that an issue had come up concerning the aides of the Mayor and City Council and employees of the City being involved in politics.

Agenda item No. 1.

Page 56. Section 836. Audits. C was added.

Pages 57 & 58, no changes.

Page 59.
(j) was added (referred to contract employees-aides).

Page 60, no changes.

Page 61. No comments by commission. However, there were issues raised by attorneys regarding the Human Resources Review Board.

Terry Ward said that the current provisions that referred to appearing before the Review Board had no changes.

Bill Geary stated that on Page 61, No. 2 needed to be discussed. He discussed the fact that there may be a time when an employee is disciplined or terminated by a supervisor. The Board is an outlet an employee can take to appeal that action taken against them. The Board has the power to recommend reversal of a decision taken against an employee.

Aggie Stackhaus asked when would a person appeal to the Board.

Bill Geary answered that it would be after the employee had either been reprimanded or suspended.

Ricardo Herrera asked how many appeals had there been in the past.

Tom Brown asked how many of the appeals had been changed or reversed. Does the process help the city or is it just another bureaucratic step.

Mark Funhouser said that his office had done an audit recently. But there were thousands of annual reviews a year but only one or two dozen appeal requests make it to the appeal board. He wasn’t sure how many were changed but he was sure that he had the information in his office.

Bill Geary assured the commission that the board was there to help city employees and the merit system. The board was originally created out of the Civil Rights Act to protect employee rights.

Alice Ellison stated that she thought that the system was a good one. It allows for the next step of fairness to employees.

Mr. Ward thought that the Board had a lot of power at their disposal. He wasn’t sure that the city government wanted an external authority to determine the future of its employees.

Mike White pointed out that it states in the section no matter what the board does, the City Manager can change their recommendation.

Mr. Ward asked if the commission wanted to retain wording or extend it. Or did they want to go back to the current wording.

Mike White made a motion to put restrictive language back into draft.

Bill Geary stated that this was add-to language. What it does is strike other comments made by the lawyers.

Terry Ward called for a vote on reinstating the stricken language. The motion was seconded and approved unanimously.

Kelley Martin asked to go back to Section 837A (page 56). He felt that the commission should specify when financial reports should be presented. Otherwise the period could be indefinite. What is reasonable?

Mark Funkhouser suggested 20 days.

Kelley Martin moved to reinstate the period of 20 days for Section 837 A.

Mark Funkhouser said that over the years he has been reviewing the monthly department reports but they were not that detailed.

There was some discussion on the issue of financial reports and how they were written.

LaTrisha Underhill said that she was in agreement with the 20 days suggested by Mr. Funkhouser. The City is required to balance its accounts on a regular basis. The report can be changed to reflect what needs to be known by City officials.

Tom Brown asked for clarification of the motion.

Terry Ward said that it was to unstrike language less than 20 days.

The motion was voted on and carried.

Terry Ward stated that B on pg 62 needed to be reinstated.

Page 60, Section 905A.

Kelley Martin asked to go back to H on page 63, giving false information in employment application.

Mr. Ward said the employment information would be dependent on how the application was written.

Mike White asked what the penalty was for falsifying an employment application.

Bill Geary answered the employee would be immediately terminated.

Mr. White stated that if there had been an expunged record involved then the employee would not have to put that on the application.

Mr. Geary stated that was correct.

Aggie Stackhaus asked about city employees taking other jobs.

Section 909 B.
Bill Geary said that the Charter allowed city employees to run for an office but had to take a leave of absence to do so.

Section 909 C.
Calvin Williford asked how a determination was made on inconsistent offices. Who made the determination?

Mr. Geary said that information would come from the City Manager.

Section 1001. Board of Parks and Recreation Commissioners. Terry Ward stated that the Board of Parks Commissioners had two recommendations. One was to raise the mill levy and the other was that special assessments include the encroachment along with frontage property. A handout with a list of alternative provisions was reviewed. Of the information shown regarding the provisions, the Parks Commissioners were comfortable with the 2nd column of information presented to the Review Commission. The second column represented a proposal that did not change the mill levy or the assessment method. It would be compatible with the Commission philosophy of getting a better form of government and not using the charter change process to solve problems that shouldn’t be entwined in the charter update process. There was also a suggestion of having a cap on contracts changed to 20 years instead of 10 years that had been proposed by staff.

Bill Geary stated that the Board would like to eliminate Park districts since that represented an antiquated thinking.

Kelley Martin asked to return to Section 1001 A. He asked if anyone was concerned with the fact that you could have a turnover of the entire Park Board with a new mayor coming into office. He suggested staggering appointments of Board members.

Aggie Stackhaus said that it should be left to the discretion of the elected Mayor to appoint/reappoint members to the Board. If the Mayor wants to replace the entire or part of the Board then he/she should have the right to do so.

Dan Porrevecchio said that if the Parks Board didn’t have a problem with that section the commission should leave it alone. If there had been a problem then the Board would have raised it.

Mark Tolbert asked if park land was removed from the system could it be sold. He saw nothing in the draft to indicate what was done once the property was removed.

Mr. Geary stated that once it has been removed from the park system it becomes property of the city. It can either be sold or swapped.

Motion was made and seconded to include the provisions of the second column in the charter for the treatment of the Park Board, with the addition of the 20 year limit on contracts. Motion carried unanimously.

Page 69, City Plan Commission. No changes.

Page 70, Board of Zoning Adjustment. No changes.

Page 71, Municipal Officials and Officers Ethics Commission. Section 1116. No changes.

Page 72, Section 1117
(a) Advisory opinions. There was a section added that dealt with guidance issues for contract employees. It closes the gap of not having ethical guidance available. Trying to protect the City and contracts from people with no ethical values. The commission agreed with the added language to close the gap.

There was a brief discussion on problems encountered in the Jackson County government and their attempts to appoint successors to Board members who had resigned. Calvin Williford said he had some concerns and was trying to figure a way to close loopholes. He would like to see some type of language that deals with ethical issues in the future.

Page 73, Section 1119, Records.
A. Closed records.
(2) Terry Ward felt that the last sentence under a (2) should also be under a (1). It seemed to cover both conditions. Agreed.

Kelley Martin asked to return to page 69, City Plan Commission.
Under 1102, (a) Planning.
(2). Recommendations to open streets. What about vacations? Shouldn’t vacations be referenced someplace in the wording. That is part of the duties of the City Plan Commission.

Terry Ward thought that it could be added to item 6 or 7.

Bill Geary suggested putting it by itself.

It was agreed to add in street vacations as part of the duties of the Plan Commission.

Page 74, Board of Trustees of City Trusts. No comments.

Page 76, Municipal Arts Commission.

Jack Holland said that the Arts Commission also had six alternates appointed by the Mayor. The wording should reflect that there are also six alternates appointed to the Municipal Arts Commission. Agreed.

Page 77, General Matters, no changes.

Page 79, Top of page, referred to employees. Sect 906 A back on page 60, dealt with employees. Terry Ward requested that employees be stricken from title. Section 1207 had more to do with elected officials and officers. The wording needed to read “officials and officers”. Agreed.

Section 1208. Permits.

(b) Bill Geary stated that this section was added at the request of attorneys assigned to CIMO. It deals mainly with utilities. This gives the City more leverage when dealing with out of town lawyers. Agreed.

Sections 1209 & 1210, no changes.

Section 1211. Contracts.

Bill Geary stated that contract attorneys tried to remove section 82 of charter. The lawyers attempted to remove language. This prevents departments from entering into contracts without having money. A contract isn’t valid until the Director of Finance signs off on the contract. Therefore contracts won’t be awarded until the money is approved. When dealing with financial matters there is a need to see rules set out from the beginning. There is less chance for contract abuse this way.

City Auditor Mark Funkhouser stated that he had seen this attempted several times during his time at City Hall. He thought that this was a good idea and would like to see it adopted.

Jack Holland asked if it would be possible to enter into a multi-year contract in stages. Was it possible to have the contract and funding spread out over several years (Sort of a pay as you go contract)?

Mr. Geary said it would be possible if the contractor agreed with the clause stating that in the contract. This has been done before and the City still does it.

Mr. Funkhouser added that the money should be kept in reserves until needed.

Mark Tolbert asked where MBE/WBE guidelines were established.

Mr. Geary stated that the guidelines were in the ordinance.

Mr. Tolbert stated that he was glad that the section would guarantee that MBE/WBE guidelines would be followed.

It was agreed that the charter should provide for the cash to be in hand when entering into contracts.

Terry Ward asked if there should be some type of language stating that at least every 10 years the mayor should appoint a Charter Review Commission to review Charter provisions. He suggested putting some type of language into the recommendations before the section on Transition Provisions. There ought to be a process that allows someone to review the Charter.

Dan Porrevecchio stated that the Mayor had the prerogative of appointing a review commission, if desired.

Mr. Ward stated that he would still like to see wording placed in the Charter that instructed the Mayor to have a review of the Charter, for any possible revisions, at no less than 10 year intervals.

Aggie Stackhaus agreed. However the process was to be done, it didn’t necessarily mean a large number of members to serve on the commission. The Mayor could appoint as few as 5 people to look at the Charter. She felt that it couldn’t hurt anything to look at it.

Jim Rice stated that he wanted to ask a question about 1211 (c) (1). Contract for services of a specialized, profession or technical charter. Does that mean you don’t need to do a competitive bid to hire attorneys, engineers or software companies.

Bill Geary answered yes. That is what the Charter says now. We do hire lawyers by going through RFPs but we don’t have to. We think that its good business practice. But if we need a specialized attorney immediately we take a look at the best available attorney who doesn’t have a conflict and enter into a contract.

Mr. Ward returned back to the discussion of whether there should be an additional section that says at least once every 10 years the Charter ought to be reviewed.

A motion was made to add the provision to the recommendations and for it to appear before the section on Transition Provisions. The motion was seconded and carried. The motion was approved unanimously.

Page 81, Transition Provisions. Sections 1301 through 1307 continue as is.

Section 1308. Effective date.

According to Bill Geary everything goes into effect after the election with the exceptions of taxes or anything that requires a specific date. The form of government is not changing but the commission is attempting to change how the city can become more efficient. There are still some things that would have to be changed by ordinance. The suggestion was for a deadline of April 23, 2007. It doesn’t mean that date can’t be changed. If it could be done in six months would be fine but some length of time is needed to allow staff to write new ordinances.

Terry Ward asked if it would be possible to suggest a period “no later than” in the recommendation. If the Charter could be taken in sections but get the changes done as quickly as the ordinances can be done.

Bill Geary said that there was a need to have a specific date that can’t be disputed. He had never written an ordinance that gives an unspecified deadline. He wasn’t sure that the Charter could be done that way. He suggested giving the City Council a deadline.

Terry Ward also suggested giving the Council a deadline of June 1, 2006 as a completion date. He asked if that was unreasonable.

LaTrisha Underhill agreed that the deadline should be shortened.

Greg Williams deferred to Bill Geary regarding the April 23, 2007 date.

It was decided that the recommendation would be the effective date is June 1, 2006. Changed 1st paragraph date on page 83 to June 1, 2006.

Section 1309.

Bill Geary stated that all documents by that date are legal.

There were six issues where commission members asked for redrafts or changes. Bill Geary explained what changes were made to the issues in question.

Agenda item No. 2

Substantive Language (these items were either requested or approved at the June 21st meeting).

Section 207. Forfeiture of office. This section, under the current Charter, does not let federal or state employees run for city offices. This section just stated that government employees could run for city office. Proposed language accepted.

Section 312. Removal from office. This section cleans up language. It defines what circumstances are for removing Municipal Court judges. Proposed language accepted.

Section 402. Rulemaking authority. This section gives a person the right to accept an assignment. Currently the Charter states that a director can assign at duty to another department but that department does not have to accept it. This section just says it is ok to accept. Proposed language accepted.

Section 406. finance. Supervision of Debt Management was added. This was requested by Jack Holland and Karen Pletz. The language is acceptable.

Section 807. Debt and economic incentive policies. This is companion to section 406. Primarily it was grammar corrections. Proposed language accepted.

Section 814. Special Assessments. The waiver provision was struck down.
Aggie Stackhaus wanted to know if this precluded the City Council from waving penalties.

Bill Geary answered yes. Some of the concept came from the City Treasurer but most came from city attorneys. The rationale was that if you give City Council members the ability to waive penalties, every big business would be coming forth to have penalties waved leaving the small business owner having to pay all penalties.

Jim Rice asked if there was any provision for genuine hardship.

Mr. Geary explained that the City does not assess a property owner until the plat had been developed. This is the current procedure.

Proposed language was accepted.


Agenda item No. 3, Preamble.

Several drafts of the preamble were submitted for consideration to the commission. There was a subcommittee assigned to the task of reviewing and submitting a revised preamble to the full commission.

Jim Rice said that he just wanted to have something for the commission to talk over.

Aggie Stackhaus said she was willing to concede as long as it referred to “access to healthcare” was include.

Terry Ward suggested adding the last sentence of the original charter so that it would flow better.

A motion was made to add the last sentence from the Jim Rice draft to the recommended preamble. The motion was seconded and carried.

Agenda item No. 4, July 8, 2005 Discussion Draft

Page 12

Mayor as CEO. This was removed from the original draft.

Dan Porrevecchio stated that this item had been removed otherwise there would have had to be a change in the form of government. Otherwise, the Mayor as CEO, would be the signatory person for contracts.

Bill Geary agreed. He stated that the version of the Mayor being CEO had been taken out but he had not changed the heading.

The Mayor should be the official head of the city. It was agreed the wording should be changed to read “official head of the city”.

Page 13. Parole and pardon.

Bill Geary stated that this section is currently in the Charter but not listed under Mayor. It exists under the heading of Community Services Department. It was agreed to leave it as is.

Page 22. (d). Delegation

Qualified would be added to sentence so that it reads “any other qualified City employee”.

Page 29. (b). Rulemaking. Other entity refers to director, department head. It was decided to drop the wording “other entity”.

Section 803 (b). Mayor should be changed to City Manager.

Page 50. Second b on page becomes c. Submit transmittal – the intent was to have the Mayor add comments to the budget before submitting it to the City Council. Sections c & d become d & e on page.

Page 52. Section 807. “Best practices” should be added after “a policy” and before “for the prudent”.

There was a discussion on the recommendation of codifying departments as requested by the City Manager. The City Manager submitted a list of departments which he would felt should be codified in the Charter. The departments were: Aviation, Convention and Entertainment Centers, General Services Department, Information Technology and Water Services.

According to LaTrisha Underhill, the City Manager believed that these departments were essential to the economic growth and stability of the City. Some of these departments were large revenue generating departments. Although the City could partner with outside entities the City Manager wants to retain ownership of those departments and have control of their assets. Being placed in the Charter would give these departments more protection of being retained more so than being an ordinance department. The City Manager was interested in keeping revenues in Kansas City rather than have those monies moved to another municipality, in the event of privatization. He has fears of seeing these departments being controlled by entities that have no ties with Kansas City. (The City Manager provided a handout with his thoughts of why these departments should be named in the Charter.)

Mr. Ward indicated that the floor was open for a complete range of motions regarding the request from the City Manager. However there could be at least half a dozen motions made on the various departments, if necessary. There is language that allows the City Manager to create any of these departments , is he/she chooses to do so. The departments can be anything the City Manager wants them to be with the approval of the Council.

Dan Porrevecchio stated that section 413 talks about additional departments. He wanted to know way that section wouldn’t cover what the City Manager wanted. That section gives city officials a document that is flexible.

Jim Rice made the comment that several of these departments which are covered by Charter or ordinance could be outsourced. Convention and Entertainment Centers could be outsourced. Public Works has plenty of private contractors doing outsourced work. He doesn’t see any rhyme or reason for the change.

Kelley Martin asked if Aviation Department was not a Charter Department could the City Council decide to outsource it without a vote of the people.

Bill Geary said that the City Council could sell it if they chose to do so.

Kelley Martin thought for homeland security reasons the Water Department should be a more secure entity. He thought that being owned by the City rather than privatization would guarantee that.

Mike White stated that it would be possible for the City to decide in the future to sell the Water Services Department. But there would be all types of agreements attached to that sell to guarantee service for the citizens of the city.

Kelley Martin moved to name Aviation as a Charter Department.

Tom Brown suggested making all departments Charter departments.

Calvin Williford asked if Aviation was the only department being singled out.

The motion was seconded and carried. The vote was 10 yeas and 1 nay. Aviation would be added as a Charter department.

Calvin Williford said that he believed in what the City Manager was trying to accomplish and supported the City Manager’s recommendations in their entirety.

Tom Brown moved to put Water Services back in as a Charter Department.

The motion was seconded and carried. The vote was 8 yeas and 4 nays. Water Services would be added as a Charter department.

Tom Brown moved to have Convention and Entertainment Centers be put in the Charter as a Charter Department.

Mike White stated just because you privatize a department doesn’t mean you have to sell it. You could privatize the management.

Jim Rice agreed. You still own the facility.

The motion to have Convention and Entertainment Centers be put in the Charter was seconded. The vote was 2 yeas and 8 nays. The motion failed.

Tom Brown suggested leaving all other departments to the discretion of the City Manager.

Agenda item No. 5, Term Limits.

There was additional discussion on term limits although the draft Charter recommended no change.

Mike White made a motion to have three terms and put the issue on a separate ballot. He suggested putting it on the April, 2006 ballot. There would be three terms consecutively. He was opposed to term limits of any kind. Term limits were not necessary. The election process is the same as term limits. The recall process is also a tool for term limits. Term limits don’t work. It makes an incumbent a lame duck during their second term in office.

Aggie Stackhaus seconded the motion on term limits and added that she was opposed to lifetime term limits.

Dan Porrevecchio asked if the date of election would be different from election date of Charter. He remembered that two terms ago citizens of Kansas City voted on term limits. If the City did propose putting term limits on a ballot it would have to be done the way Mike White proposed.

Jim Rice stated that the commission had heard from various council members and the Mayor and they didn’t like the idea of term limits. He felt that the commission should be able to resolve this issue.

Tom Brown agreed that the issue should be kept on a separate ballot.

The motion to change term limits to three consecutive terms and recommend it be presented to the voters at the April, 2006 election was seconded and carried. The vote was 10 yeas and 1 nay.

Agenda item No. 6, Initiative petition.

There were no changes made to the initiative petition process.

Bill Geary did a draft on recall. The question was, should there by grounds for recall.

Mike White made a motion to add grounds for recall. He suggested putting it on an April, 2006 ballot.

Aggie Stackhaus stated that she felt that it should be put on a separate ballot.

Terry Ward agreed that grounds for recall should be put on a ballot at a later date.

The motion was seconded and carried. The vote was 11yeas and 0 nays.

Jack Holland made a motion that Section 725. Results of recall election should be considered by the council at a later date.

The motion was seconded and carried. The vote was 10 yeas and 0 nays.

Greg Williams affirmed his understanding that the issue on term limits was being recommended for April 2006 after the November election on the base new streamlined charter.

Agenda item No. 7, Transmittal letter to Council.

Terry Ward asked what the next process was with the submission of the Charter recommendations to the Council.

Greg Williams explained how the process would unfold.

Terry Ward asked if any of the commission members would be interested in seeing the final results of the recommendations to be presented to the Council.

A motion was made to leave the transmittal to the discretion of Terry Ward.

The motion was seconded and carried. The vote was 10 yeas and 0 nays.

Mr. Ward stated that he would forward a copy of the corrected document to all commission members. They would have the opportunity to review and make comments about the revisions before the document is submitted to the Council.

Greg Williams stated that the recommendations would be presented to the City Council on July 28. The July 8th draft, along with all documents and minutes would be presented to the council for deliberation. He would try to unclutter the Business Session scheduled for that date so that it would be entirely devoted to the Charter presentation. The City Council then has to August 25th to decide what they want to do about the recommendations if they want the voters to consider the new charter at the November election. Thursday, August 4th, the recommendations should be put on the Finance Committee agenda. There would be open meetings for the next three weeks to take testimony and discuss the recommendations. After that time, the recommendations would be sent to the full council.

Terry Ward said that it was possible that July 28th Business Session would become the work session with the Council. Although he was not sure what would happen at that time, he asked members to keep that date open just in case the Business Session became the Commission-requested Joint Work Session.

Alice Ellison said that community leaders and citizens were anxious about receiving a copy of the proposed recommendations.

Greg Williams stated that he would try to get information on the website as soon as possible. He also stated that Parks and Recreation was good about getting information out at the various community centers across the city.

Jim Rice thought that an informal exchange could be done during the Business Session. However an additional work session might be needed to explain why things were done a certain way.

Mr. Ward said that July 21st was the anticipated date of submitting the transmittal letter to the council. That could be done sooner once everyone was comfortable with the transmittal document.

Kelley Martin wanted to make sure the Mike White’s comments about term limits were reflected.

Terry Ward thanked Bill Geary and Greg Williams for their hard work; in preparing the commission for the task they had undertaken with the materials and legal assistances that they had provided. He thanked Mark Funkhouser and LaTrisha Underhill for being in attendance and being available to answer questions from the commission. He thanked Pat Terry for supplying minutes from the meetings. He also thanked the Communications department for broadcasting the meetings to insure that the public was aware of the proceedings. He thanked the Parks Department for acting as facilitator for the public hearings that were held at various community centers around the city. Lastly, he thanked commission members for their participation and role in helping to revisit and revise the Charter.

Aggie Stackhaus, speaking on behalf of the commission, thanked Mr. Ward for his leadership in the role of Chair for the commission. She thought he had done an awesome job as Chair.

Meeting adjourned at 11:02 a.m.