Over the last few years, staff has identified over 30 necessary administrative and/or technical changes needed to the Charter. Many of these amendments are to align the Charter with current practices or changes in state law. Other amendments address antiquated provisions or provisions that are no longer relevant. Additionally, a majority of these amendments have been on the docket for more than five years. A list of these proposed amendments is attached.

Given the number of technical amendments that have been waiting for consideration by the voters, we are recommending that the attention of our focus for the next Charter Amendment election be on the amendments recommended by staff. It is also my recommendation that the City Manager convene an internal charter review committee to review, refine, and update the existing requests and forward a priority recommendation to Council for consideration.

Lastly, it is strongly recommended that we bring charter amendments forward in a 2023 special election. Due to the number of amendments needed, a special election in the off season would provide an opportunity to present a number of amendments to the voters rather than only one or two when combined with a candidate or other special election. This would also allow for educational outreach that is specific to the charter and that does not have to compete with the information that is presented for other election matters.

We have been recruiting for a Citizen Committee since last summer with no interest coming from the community. There was a lot of interest garnered for the Citizen Bond Committee which is in full swing, reviewing possible bond questions for 2022. We do not want to take away from the important and intense work of the bond committee and the questions that will likely be forwarded to the ballot this year.