Sean C. Morgan
The Sweet Home City Council voted last week to move forward with charter revisions and have staff prepare the question for the November ballot.
Revising the city charter requires the approval of the majority of Sweet Home voters.
Staff will prepare the documents for final approval of the council at its regular meeting on Aug. 26.
Assuming it moves forward, it will be easier to read, clearer and more definitive, said City Manager Craig Martin.
The council appointed a charter review committee, including three citizens, two past councilors and two current councilors. The committee met on May 6, May 20 and June 30. A final draft appeared before the council during its regular meeting on Aug. 12.
Since then, there have been a couple of more recommendations by City Attorney Robert Snyder, Martin said. None of them are substantive, just “word smithing.”
The revisions clarify details regarding the number of councilors required to make different types of decisions, Martin said. Some of the current language has been potentially confusing.
In the revision, a quorum is defined as a majority – more than half – of council members. The existing ordinance defined it as four members of the council, a majority of council seats.
Under the proposed ordinance, if the council had only five members, as Sweet Home does, the quorum would be three, Snyder said.
Removing the city manager requires a vote of the majority of the council, unlike most other decisions, which simply require a majority vote of a quorum. New language requires four councilors to remove the city manager. If the council has two vacancies, under existing charter language, three councilors could remove the city manager.
“We wanted to have it as stable as we could have it on that issue and not have it less than that,” Snyder said.
The manager must attend City Council meetings unless excused by three councilors or the mayor, and that language is maintained in the revisions.
A pro tem (temporary) city manager cannot remove a city officer or employee without a vote of five members of the council. This provision also remains from the current version of the charter.
The existing charter also allows a second reading of a proposed ordinance a second time at a meeting with a unanimous vote of the councilors present at the meeting. A third reading and approval of ordinances must be held on a different date.
“I did not recommend the changes in voting for the city manager,” Martin said. Based on what he’s seen other communities experience, he said, “you’ve got to be careful what’s in your charter because, essentially, three people by not showing up at a council meeting could prohibit the council from removing somebody that may need to be removed.
“Don’t hamstring your council either way on both sides of the occasion.”
The idea, he said, “is not to have somebody potentially block action by not participating.”
Among other changes:
– The revisions eliminate technical language defining the city limits and base it on existing boundaries with future additions.
– References to councilors and various positions are gender-neutral.
– References to a fire chief have been removed because the city no longer has one. The fire chief is now the top staff position in the Sweet Home Fire and Ambulance District.
– Removed references to a 1910 law regarding liability.
– Altered 1947 language regarding debt, limiting debt to levels imposed by state law.
– Removed a section regarding damage lawsuits because state tort laws deal with that.
– Removed 18 bond amendments because they are no longer in effect along with a 1993 amendment regarding minority status of homosexuals, which has been ruled unconstitutional.
Present and voting to move forward with the charter revisions were councilors Marybeth Angulo, Craig Fentiman, Mayor Jim Gourley, Bruce Hobbs and Greg Mahler. Absent were Scott McKee Jr. and Dave Trask.
In other business, the council:
– Appointed Aaron Pye to the Traffic Safety Committee, with a term expiring on Aug. 11, 2016.