Plank Six
Amend the City Charter as follows:
Article II, Section 1, shall be amended to provide: "The City Commission shall be composed of five voting members: three City Commissioners, the Young Adult Vote and the Mayor."
Article IV, Section 1, shall be amended to provide:
a) City Commissioners, the members of the Young Adult Vote, and the Mayor shall be residents and qualified electors of the City of Great Falls.
b) Elections for City Commissioners, the members of the Young Adult Vote and for the Mayor shall be non-partisan.
c) All members of the City Commission shall be elected for a term of four years. Except in the case of a previous vacancy, two City Commissioners and the Mayor shall be elected every two years. One member of the Young Adult Vote shall be elected in each successive election, sequentially as the case may be. City Commissioners, members of the Young Adult Vote and the Mayor shall take office the first Tuesday after January 1st in the year following the election.
d) City Commissioners and the Mayor shall be nominated and elected at large.
e) No member of the City Commission shall be elected for more than one term
in any ten year period.
There shall be an Article IV, Section 3, as follows:
a) There shall be three members of the City Commission who shall, collectively, cast one vote as set forth herein. This three-member vote shall be referred to as the Young Adult Vote.
b) All age requirements of the Young Adult Vote shall be met at the time of election. One member of the Young Adult Vote shall be younger than 28 years of age. One member of the Young Adult Vote shall be younger than 33 years of age. One member of the Young Adult Vote shall be younger than 38 years of age.
c) The Young Adult Vote shall be entitled to vote on any issue presented to the City Commission. A majority of the Young Adult Vote members shall be entitled to cast the Young Adult Vote's single vote on the City Commission.
d) The Young Adult Vote shall be dissolved and replaced by a single Commissioner without age requirement as of January 1, 2020, unless such date shall be extended by an affirmative vote of the City Commission.
7 comments:
GeeGuy,
Interesting take on enlarging the voting commission.
Is that to make it more difficult to pass bad ideas?
Resistance is not Futile
Actually, I thought it would a) interject some new blood and thought into the Commission (understanding that the young people would probably be liberal) and would b) help attract younger people to our community.
Frankly, I think we need smart young people right now more than we need more jobs.
Questions to the legal scholar(s) - since I am not smarter than you...
Is there a way to rewrite this to restrict commission/mayoral powers or better balance power? It sounds like they have executive and legislative powers because they have power to invoke police to enforce their bidding.
Article II - City Commission
Section 1 - Composition
.... The City Commission shall be the legislative and policymaking body of the City of Great Falls.
Section 2 - Duties and Responsibilities
The City Commission shall:
a) Adopt policies and procedures and enact ordinances and resolutions as necessary for the proper execution of governmental functions and responsibilities.
b) Appoint and supervise, and may remove, the City Manager.
c) Adopt an annual budget, levy taxes and special assessments, and may borrow money and issue bonds subject to Montana law. Appropriations, exclusive of
bond and loan indebtedness, shall not exceed anticipated revenue.
d) Adopt as necessary an administrative and personnel code and/or policies.
e) Adopt procedures for contracting with private and public agencies.
f) Appoint citizens to boards, councils, committees or any other body or group
pursuant to law.
g) Set the salary of the City Commissioners and the Mayor by ordinance.
It appears "they" have judiciary power too....
Section 2 - Vacancy in the Office of City Commission or Mayor
a) The office of City Commissioner or Mayor shall become vacant upon death,resignation, recall or forfeiture of office.
b) A majority of the City Commission shall be the judge of the election and qualifications of its members and the grounds for forfeiture of their office. A City Commissioner or Mayor charged with conduct constituting grounds for forfeiture of office shall be entitled to notice in writing of such charges and a public hearing on demand before a majority of the City Commission.
My problem is with Neighborhood Councils - aren't they supposed to help keep commissioners in check?
Section 4 - Neighborhood Councils
As Amended by the voters November 7, 2000
Charter - 7
a) Purpose: There shall be neighborhood councils. The councils shall act in an advisory capacity to the City Commission, the City Manager and to other City advisory bodies, and may contribute information, opinions, advice, suggestions and recommendations to the City Commission, City Manager and other City advisory bodies on all governmental affairs and services having an effect on the area the neighborhood council represents, including, but not limited to, public finance, public works, public safety, planning and zoning, and public health and sanitation.
Seeming simple but heavy stuff here.
b) Appoint and supervise, and may remove, the City Manager.
It says you may remove the manager but if he has a multiple year contract and then you find you have to pay say $100,000 or more in severance pay then what? Is johns contract one of those open documents or is that confidential? What spells out the conditions under which a city manager can be removed? By petition of the public?
a few ordinances may be in order here. the totality of the city code pertaining to the manager says this
2.8.010 Appointment - Generally
The provisions for the appointment of a City Manager and his/her powers and duties are established by Charter. (Ord. 2652, 1993).
thats all folks.
b) A majority of the City Commission shall be the judge of the election and qualifications of its members and the grounds for forfeiture of their office. A City Commissioner or Mayor charged with conduct constituting grounds for forfeiture of office shall be entitled to notice in writing of such charges and a public hearing on demand before a majority of the City Commission.
Only 3 commission members will “be the judge” of their own behavior and what constitutes kicking out a member and selecting a new one? I guess the philosophy of this is expedience but this just smacks of old boy. An example of rules that address how people “should” be but not how they “are”. This really needs cleaning up, maybe at least a vote of the entire neighborhood council and not the commission.
The only reference to what constitutes kicking someone out in the code is this
2.56.020 Removal of members of boards, commissions and councils
A member of any board or commission or council, who misses more than one-third (1/3) of the regular meetings in a calendar year without a health or medical excuse, shall lose his/her status as a member of such board, commission or council and shall be replaced by the City Commission. Such removal must be preceded by delivery of a copy of a notice of removal stating the reasons therein to such member at least ten days prior to a hearing thereon before the City Commission, should such member request a hearing on the removal. (Ord. 2793, 2001).
there is a whole code of ethics but nothing to spell out what if the ethics are violated.
a) Purpose: There shall be neighborhood councils. The councils shall act in an advisory capacity to the City Commission, the City Manager and to other City advisory bodies, and may contribute information, opinions, advice, suggestions and recommendations to the City Commission, City Manager and other City advisory bodies on all governmental affairs and services having an effect on the area the neighborhood council represents, including, but not limited to, public finance, public works, public safety, planning and zoning, and public health and sanitation.
The way i read this it says they have the option to advise. Nothing says the advise has to be taken.
I liked Marry Jolleys questioning through the mayor to the city manager three times about the 1.4 mil and after a lot of um, uh, um... the final answer was “I'm not prepared to answer that”. So now should we wait till the next meeting and ask again and see if he's prepared yet?
Hold on, don't we have a thing called networks where you can get any info you want any time? How about requiring everyone to have their laptop with them.
What about the man who was complaining about the motorcycle track and noise at night. The ultimate answer seemed to be “Theres nothing we can do”. I think thats this city's current motto. Wasn't the city attorney there? Doesn't he know the code? It took me minutes to find two code violations on the Internet. If he was any good and had a computer he could have given the exact codes immediately.
You are bringing up some very important and difficult issues here. We want our people to be good and do business expeditiously but the rules must reflect the inherent weakness of people. They don't seem to spell out much about when things go bad.
I made a post about the 3 minute rule on my blog if anyone could comment.
Ed,
Thanks for all the work you are doing on your websites.
1) Repealing the 3 minute rule is a wonderful idea!
2) This makes sense:
Small and consistent steps can enable a smooth transition over time. The charter is meant to be changeable but broad an sweeping changes may bring up entirely new problems. This is a matter for the public to decide.
Emphasis on small and consistent steps....
It shows wisdom to recognize the need to improve while not throwing the baby out with the bath water.
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