1999-10-13 Charter Commission Minutes

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minutes 10-13-99Page 12 of 31 going to have to dig into the Charter, and probably rewrite the entire thing, because there are so many little threads. And you see this when you read these old minutes down in the Archives. I’ve come to you, as I said, about the Police Commission, but I want to talk about on Page 7 of the County Charter, it seems like, the current executive, we continue to go behind trying to clean up things, and there was a recent furor over him saying that he might decide to quit his job, or to resign, and run again. Obviously, we’re going to have to change the Charter, and that would be in Section 5-1.2 Qualifications, the last sentence where it says the Mayor may serve for more than two terms of office but shall not serve for more than two consecutive full terms. If we just change the word "serve"; the Mayor may be elected for more than two terms of office, but shall not be elected for more than two consecutive terms. Change the word "serve" to "be elected". Give the voters the opportunity to do that and, I assure you, they’ll probably do so, and that will solve that problem. I read back through the Charter Commission minutes from ‘65 or ‘66 and they talked about this at some length, and their concern about how the wording for this, and the way they put it, they didn’t want a machine building up that the voters would not be able to have control over, and that’s kind of what we’re up against here. But I would suggest putting that before the voters and I’m sure they would probably approve it. Thank you. That’s all I had to say about that. MARTIN: Before you go on any further, Mr. Chairman, may I speak to his last statement? If you were to make the changes that you have just mentioned, it would still allow a person to resign and run for an election. The terminology, itself - PRANKE: They would have to resign and run each term. MARTIN: Not necessarily. PRANKE: I don’t think the voters are going to put up with that. MARTIN: I understand, possibly not putting up with it, but changing of the words that you’ve just mentioned would do nothing to hinder what you’re trying to stop. PRANKE: Cannot be elected for more than two consecutive terms? MARTIN: That’s the key, the consecutive terms. If you take that word out, possibly. PRANKE: Yes, and that’s the case now, and that’s what it is now. The person can serve for two years, sit out a term, and run again. MARTIN: Correct. PRANKE: Okay, that’s okay now. So what’s the problem? MARTIN: There’s no problem but what I thought I heard you saying was the intent of our present Mayor, if he were to resign, would he then be entitled to run again. PRANKE: Yes. MARTIN: And under the Charter, it’s yes. And even if you were to make the changes, and that’s what I think I’m hearing you saying, to disallow that, the changes that you made mention to would still allow a person to run again. file://\\coh01\cohweb\council\charter_commission\minutes\minutes 10-13-99.html7/1/2011