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Charter06-25-13Min City of Longwood 2013 Charter Advisory Committee Longwood City Commission Chambers 175 West Warren Avenue Longwood, Florida MINUTES June 25, 2013 7:00 P.M. Present: Chair Ben Paris Vice Chair Logan Cody Member Becky Huse Member Alesia Carringer Dan Langley, City Attorney Sarah M. Mirus, Recording Secretary Absent: Member Malcom Cooper 1. CALL TO ORDER. Chair Paris called the meeting to order at 7:01 p.m. 2. APPROVAL OF MINUTES- May 28, 2013. Vice Chair Cody moved to approve the minutes. Seconded by Member Huse and carried by a unanimous voice vote with Member Cooper absent. 3. PUBLIC PARTICIPATION. None. 4. REVIEW OF CHARTER. A. ARTICLE IV. City Officers. Chair Paris said he was considering bringing up the changing of a title. In doing his research, he found that the title of City Administrator is usually reserved for people that work under a power Mayor. He said it is usually a City Manager who works when there is not a power Mayor. This was adopted in Longwood back when there was a power Mayor, and we called him a City Administrator. Chair Paris said there are very few City Administrators left, so Longwood has someone representing us that basically runs the City and is called the City Administrator. He said he was not sure if this is the proper Article to make this change to, because it is the first Article that mentions the City Administrator. He said he would like to consider changing the title of City Administrator to City Manager, just the title, nothing else. Charter 06 -25 -13/1 Chair Paris said that is his interpretation from the research he has done. He asked for advice from Mr. Langley, and if this is correct. Mr. Langley said he would not say it is incorrect. He said all the cities he has worked for, other than the City of Longwood, the person who runs the day to day operations is called the City Manager. That is the norm for him, and he does not know if that is the norm for every city. He has not done an independent study, but it looks like you have researched it. He noted he is not familiar with any other city in Central Florida other than Longwood that has a City Administrator. Member Carringer said basically, he is managing the City, so his title might as well be what he is. She said Administrator gives a different connotation to what he does. Chair Paris said it is mostly for aesthetics and for representing us. He thinks it would be better if he represented us as the City Manager and said again that he thinks this is the only Article that refers to changing his title from City Administrator to City Manager. Member Carringer said it sounds more professional as well, and it sets the tone for what he is and the power that he has. Chair Paris made a motion to change the City Administrator's title to City Manager. Seconded by Vice Chair Cody and carried by a unanimous voice vote with Member Cooper absent. Chair Paris asked if there were any other issues with Article IV. Vice Chair Cody said he had a question. He asked because he is on a fixed term, should there be a re- confirmation at some time. Otherwise, you get one guy in there, which is what we were discussing at the last meeting. Member Carringer said he is hired and fired by the Commissioners. Vice Chair Cody said there is no set time table. Member Carringer said he is constantly under scrutiny. Chair Paris said we have gone through quite a few City Managers. Usually, if he or she starts messing up, the Commission is quick to Charter 06 -25 -13/2 react. He said he thinks we should leave it where it is. It has worked so far. Member Huse said she read that they did get an annual review. Member Carringer said if you have been to any of the meetings and anything goes wrong, his feet are basically held to the fire. Vice Chair Cody said he has one more question. He asked if there was anything about the City Administrator being held to the same standards as the Commissioners were as far as felonies and misdemeanors were concerned. Mr. Langley said it was in Section 4.0, Sub - Section 3 and it covers conduct. He said that the City Administrator's Contract goes into some detail about those things. Chair Paris said if there was nothing else to be covered in Article IV, they will move on to Article V. B. ARTICLE V. Administrative Department. It was the consensus of the Committee to move past Article V with no recommendations with Member Cooper absent. 5. OLD BUSINESS. A. ARTICLE III, SECTION 3.01. Composition, Qualifications of Members, Commission Districts, Election, Term of Office, Oath and Forfeiture. Chair Paris said this will cover what the Attorney wrote -up for them. He said his only question was do they want to clarify in this particular Section what happens if a Commissioner steps down or was removed from office, and there was a partial term that was held by somebody. Mr. Langley said this Section talks about the term of office, not about the person. The four (4) years runs, and if a person vacates the office, the term has to be filled in accordance with the other provisions of the Charter that go to filling vacancies. The person filling the vacancy term was up when that person who vacated the position's term would have been up. There was constantly a four (4) year interval where there will always be an election on even number of years. Charter 06 -25 -13/3 Member Carringer said, so it does not matter when his term was UP. Chair Paris said but that person stepped in halfway through one (1) term, filled two (2) years and then ran for election, they would only hold six (6) years in office, but then they could not run for an additional term. He said he was okay with it that way as long as it was not the key to clarify one way or the other. Member Hues said he was saying that person did not have two (2) full terms. Chair Paris said but if he did run and got it, he would now have ten (10) years. Member Carringer said he would know that, going into the vacant position ahead of time. Chair Paris said he was okay with that, but do they need to clarify that or just leave it ambiguous. Mr. Langley said when he was drafting this, he considered that. He said one way of making that clear, because this could go either way, was that they could put in where he has the provision, "Commencing on the date the City's general election is held in 2014, no person shall serve or be eligible to serve more than two (2) four year terms..." Mr. Langley said that way if they were filling in for someone who vacated, that temporary spot would not count toward their term limits. He said keep in mind if the position was vacated six (6) months into the term, the person could serve a pretty long term. Chair Paris said, it could be good or it could be bad. He just wanted to see if they should clarify it and spell it out. Member Carringer said to her it should not matter. She said it should be spelled out that regardless if it was one (1) week and two (2) days or three (3) years and forty (40) days, it should be spelled out that your term was two (2). Chair Paris said so if someone steps in and does a partial term, they only get to fill that term out and then they have one (1) more term. Member Carringer said they still come back to the same thing. Even if they could not stand that person for six (6) years and gave him another six (6) years, it still falls into the same thing they were Charter 06 -25 -13/4 trying to get out of, and that was terms are terms, whether they spend forty (40) days in it or four (4) years in it, a term was a term. Chair Paris said the way they have it written up, it spells it out that they get those terms only. Mr. Langley said that was how he would interpret it as two (2) terms. He said they could clarify it even further. Chair Paris said he was okay with this as long as they do not specify that they get an additional term. It was for two (2) terms only. Vice Chair Cody said even if they were filling for one (1) of those terms, it was still counted as a term. Chair Paris said he sees no issues with how Mr. Langley drew this up, as long as it was clear that if they fill in for a week and they were up for election the next week that was their one (1) term. Mr. Langley said if they were okay with this language, someone needs to make a motion to recommend that Section 3.01 be modified as specified in this document. That way, there was something in the Minutes that shows that this was a recommendation. Member Carringer moved that be done. Seconded by Member Hues and carried by a unanimous voice vote with Member Cooper absent. Vice Chair Cody asked if there would be anything wrong with getting a business card saying City Charter Review Member if he pays for it himself. Mr. Langley said he did not know the answer to that. Chair Paris said the other thing before they adjourn was he noticed there was a Cost Analysis attached that they asked for. He said he wanted to make note that they all have seen it. Member Carringer said when it was possible to piggyback on to Seminole County, it would make sense. She said now they know if they have to do a special election or would want to do one, it would not be terribly expensive, only about $10,000 or $15,000, which seems reasonable. The Committee Members were in agreement. Charter 06 -25 -13/5 6. AGENDA ITEMS FOR THE NEXT MEETING. Chair Paris suggested doing Articles VI and VII for the next meeting. He said also Mr. Langley will reword the previous Article for changing over to City Manager. Mr. Langley said it would be simple to do it on an Ordinance. It would be simply a ballot question that says for every instance that the words City Administrator appeared in the Charter, the words City Manager will be substituted. He said he does not think it would be necessary for him to do a red line of all the Charter provisions to show that. He said he could put all their changes on one (1) document, so he can put in a simple word change from City Administrator to City Manager as a recommendation and keep it simple. Chair Paris said he liked it. Member Carringer said keeping it simple was perfect. 7. ADJOURN. Chair Paris adjourned the meeting 7:17 p.m. P s, Chair ATTEST: 1'e tja 6'1 DftNa e- e F C ncCY 6,,-4G cps ah M. Mirus, C, MBA, Recording Secretary Charter 06 -25 -13/6