Consider and take action on Resolution No. 19-071, accepting a Charter Amendment recommendation concerning Article III, Section 3. City Secretary. (City Secretary)

In April the Charter Review Committee made recommendations on Charter Amendments. Since then, the City Secretary, James Hartshorn resigned to take a job in Pflugerville.  With this change, several things were reviewed internally as well as what other cities do with respect to appointment and oversight of the City Secretary.  Many cities have the City Secretary appointed by and report to the Chief Executive Officer of the City.  This is done for day to day oversight, not overstating the importance of the position which is no longer an administrative position in most cities (like a police chief or fire chief), city councils/commissions do not see the City Secretary daily or have interaction with the position regularly, and most of the directive and establishment of the agenda is done by the Chief Executive Officer.  Texas City is strengthening the wording to clarify the Mayor is the Chief Executive Officer who is at City Hall regularly to oversee the City Secretary and the mayor is over other staff that can be assigned to assist or oversee aspects of the City Secretary position.  In addition, the position of the City Secretary has other duties and incorporates other positions that fall directly under the mayor such as Management Services, Records Managments, Communications/Media, etc.  Therefore to be more in line with how Texas City operates with the Mayor being the Chief Executive Officer, better oversight, multiple duties outside the typical City Secretary responsibilities, it is recommended the change of the attached Charter Amendment to place the City Secretary under the Mayor be placed on the Charter Amendments.  The change has been discussed with Bob Senter, Chair of the Charter Review Committee, and he concurs and did not feel it was necessary to call the Charter Review Committee together for this one item.  Phil Roberts is also aware of the change and is supportive and requested that the item be placed on this agenda for concurrence by the City Commission.

The attached recommended changes.