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<br />We've been meeting since last February. We've held, I believe, 29 meetings to date,
<br />which included eight public hearings. Presently we're involved in a set of four public
<br />hearings which are discussing 19 proposed amendments. These are all proposed
<br />amendments which have, at this point, a pretty strong measure of support by a majority
<br />of the Commission members, but not necessarily will all these amendments appear.
<br />We've already received input in a couple of the public hearings for some additional
<br />items which, I feel pretty certain that we're going to consider, but we wanted to get
<br />something out in writing to engage the public sooner rather than later because most
<br />people don't pay any attention until you, sort of, stick something in their face. Like I say,
<br />we've been meeting for almost 13 months now, 30 meetings, and probably have had 20
<br />or 30 people total come to the meetings and testify, including the public hearings, in
<br />that entire period of time. We have received more testimony in writing. But in terms of
<br />actual engagement by the public, it's been pretty disappointing. So, we wanted to go
<br />ahead and get these proposals out for discussion. As I said, we're in the midst of four
<br />public hearings right now. We'd like to wrap up our final amendments with the
<br />proposed ballot language by June or so, so that that leaves us plenty of time, prior to
<br />the election, to get that out to the public so they can understand what the Charter
<br />Amendments are all about because they're fairly complex, the language, to engage and
<br />change the Charter, so it requires a fair amount of time to get that out.
<br />I also want to point out that other than the Charter Review Commission which, like I
<br />said, is mandated to meet every 10 years, the Charter can also be amended two other
<br />ways. It can be amended by a petition signed by 20% of the registered voters in the
<br />last election, and it can be put up for amendment by a County Council ordinance, which
<br />actually happens fairly regularly. In other words, the County Council, with six members
<br />out of the nine, can vote to put something before the voters. And I think that's the other
<br />important point. Any of these recommendations, whether it be from the Charter
<br />Commission, by petition, or by County ordinance, all go before the voters to decide. So
<br />all we do is put forth a slate that appears on an election and these will appear in the
<br />November election next fall.
<br />We have the summary of the 19 proposed amendments, right now, and I'd like to run
<br />through those quickly.
<br />The first one is non-partisan elections. A little bit of background. Basically this would
<br />effect all County elected officials. In other words, everybody would run as a non-
<br />partisan. There'd be no party affiliations. The process, in terms of getting elected, and
<br />this is subject to however we want to set it up, but we've tried to follow the most
<br />common models, is that if someone wins 50% of the votes plus one in the Primary, they
<br />win outright. Otherwise, the top two folks go on to the General. If the number 2
<br />proposal that's here, which is to change the Council Districts to include 3 at -large
<br />seats, we've also proposed language that would address that should there be non-
<br />partisan elections and at -large seats. So we have a suggested formula if, basically, the
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