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HomeMy WebLinkAboutCRC 05/28/2008 City of Ocoee Minutes of the Charter Review Commission Meeting Held May 28, 2008 Call to Order Chairperson Grafton called the meeting to order at 6:34 p.m. in the Commission Chambers of City Hall, located at 150 N. Lakeshore Drive. Chairperson Grafton gave the invocation and led the pledge of allegiance to the flag. Recording Clerk Moseley called roll and declared a quorum to be present. Roll Call Present: Chairperson Jean Grafton, Members Michael Barnes, Danny Howell, and Rob McKey. Also present were City Clerk Eikenberry, City Attorney Nick Palmer, and Recording Clerk Moseley. Absent: None. Guest: Bill Cowles, Supervisor of Elections, Mayor Vandergrift, and Commissioner Johnson. Chairperson Grafton announced that Member Rosemarie Morganto had resigned from the Charter Review Commission and asked if they would have a replacement for her by the next meeting. City Clerk Eikenberry said Commissioner Johnson had not appointed a new member yet, but was working on it. Mayor Vandergrift stated he had a memo from Paul Rosenthal, City Attorney, dated September 25, 1998, and he gave a copy to the clerk. He explained the contents of the memo were stripping the Mayor from any emergency powers that the state has given to him, by the request of the City Manager at the time who did not particularly care for the Mayor. He said the memo was basically keeping him from meetings after emergencies occur; however, Florida law recognizes the Mayor as the official head of the city and he thinks the board should look at that. It would not help him at this point, but would help Mayors in the future. He asked the board to look at the memo and the portion of the charter regarding emergencies, and decide if a change should be proposed. Member Howell pointed out that the charter states that in case of emergency the Mayor is the one in charge. Mayor Vandergrift agreed, but said the memo from 1998 referred to the attorney's and the city manager's difference of interpretation and asked the board to clarify that section of the charter. He stated his concern with the issue was that someone who is not directly connected to the emergency situation should be looking at it, rather than just the Police Chief, Fire Chief, and City Manager. Member Barnes and Vice-Chair McKey asked to add Section C-20 of the Charter to the list for further discussion. Charter Review Commission Meeting May 28, 2008 Approval of Charter Review Commission Minutes for May 14, 2008. Vice-Chair McKev. seconded bv Member Howell. moved to avvrove the minutes of Mav 14. 2008. Motion carried unanimouslv. Guest Speaker: Bill Cowles, Supervisor of Elections Bill Cowles said he was pleased to be invited to speak to the Charter Review Commission and shared some items he usually shares to such boards. His first suggestion was to keep it simplistic. He clarified for them to make sure the Charter states that they adopt the Florida Election Code, with the exceptions listed. The exceptions are only those things that would be unique to the City of Ocoee. He mentioned that some things were put in there so long ago that they are in conflict with Florida Statute, and it is easier to change as the Florida Election Law changes, as opposed to having to bring changes to the voters by ballot. Bill Cowles stated one part of the Charter that would be specific to a City would be the make up of the City Canvassing Board and the time frame for the canvassing of the elections as it relates to the Canvassing Board. He said they could opt to change the time of canvassing to be done on Election Day or that evening, rather than the next day. He said there is an issue with that which comes into affect July 2008, such that the SOE has to do official audits after the election is certified. Chairperson Grafton asked if the audit was performed by the SOE or by each entity. Bill Cowles explained the County Canvassing Board picks five precincts county-wide and picks a common race in each. The law says that after the election they have to pick between 1-2% of the precincts and Ocoee has four so one is 25%. Afterwards they have to physically go through eyeball to ballot to verify each ballot, including the absentee ballots, polling, provisional, etc. that are done by the City Canvassing Board. He said all is done by the City Canvassing Board, unless you decide to piggy back with SOE. Chairperson Grafton said they had discussed changing the Canvassing Board already from two Commissioners not running and the Mayor, because it has caused awkward times when the Mayor is running. She asked how the County does it. Bill Cowles said the County Canvassing Board is made up of the Supervisor, the County Judge, and County Commissioner. If one of them has opposition, then the Chief Judge appoints someone to replace them. The other part of the law says any member of the Canvassing Board that is actively campaigning for or against one of the members must remove themselves from the board. He said changing the structure of the board would be wise. Bill Cowles said you have to have time to recount ballots before certifying them. The date that new elected officials take office has to be after the election has been verified and certified, usually 14 days or more. He said if you do not have any provisional ballots, then you can go right into certification and auditing. He advised that two weeks after the election is certified is a good time for swearing in. He strongly recommends having the Canvassing Board meet on Election Day. Additionally, due to the new equipment, the Canvassing Board needs to meet at the office of SOE now. The absentee ballots are already there and signatures can be verified right there; it is much easier to count them on 2 Charter Review Commission Meeting May 28, 2008 the high speed equipment rather than opening and hand feeding them like they used to. The law says you can start processing ballots six days in advance, but most cities start it early on Election Day and just do not give the results until 7 p.m. He then gave some examples. Bill Cowles said the Florida Legislature passed Senate Bill 866, whereas a large portion is a rewrite of the municipal recall issue. He suggests looking at the Florida Statute of the definitions of what a person is who can be recalled and the time frames. You would not have to make exceptions for that because it is in the Florida Statutes. Bill Cowles also suggested they consider four year terms that are staggered every two years. Chairperson Grafton said they had already looked at that as it was suggested by the City Clerk. Bill Cowles said four year terms allow them to piggy-back on the County elections and at those times they could save a lot of money, as they would be sharing the cost. Some cities have passed an ordinance advocating to the County Canvassing Board to canvass their election, which is an advantage. So, the only cities who had to canvass their own elections were ones with run-offs. Bill Cowles explained that one problem could be voter confusion. Voters would get two ballots and two envelopes and some voters put both ballots into one envelope, which causes problems. Therefore, it is easier to piggy-back with SOE and have their Canvassing Board canvass the City's election. Then the election would be at the County polling places and candidates would need to campaign at more precincts than usual. However, on the off year, the cities consolidate down to fewer polling places on Election Day to save and use city facilities. So some voters will be going to different polling places and that could be an issue. He said several cities have only one polling place for city elections. With Ocoee's growth and annexations, they want to look at it terms of how many polling places they really need. Bill Cowles clarified the things that would be unique to Ocoee, such as term of office and when they take office. Other than that, it would be appropriate to use the Florida Election Code and not clutter the charter unnecessarily. Comparison of Other Charters with Ours Page by Page Vice-Chair McKey asked if they could briefly go through the election section of the charter, page by page, while Bill Cowles was present to assist. Chairperson Grafton began to review the election portions. Page C-35, Article 7, Section C-45 Election dates and terms of office. Member Barnes said in Section C-45-B, would be where they would change the times. Bill Cowles thought the term regular meeting could be misinterpreted, so maybe stating a specific nwnber of days could be clearer. City Clerk Eikenberry agreed that actual days would be better. Bill Cowles also said they need to keep in mind that there may be a run-off election that they need to wait for, so would they want to swear in both candidates at the same time, or swear in one and have the other one wait. The Florida Election Law was changed to do away with run-off elections in the state and majority wins. That would also save the City money. 3 Charter Review Commission Meeting May 28, 2008 Section C-47, Qualifications of electors. Bill Cowles said most cities set the schedule for qualifying, either by ordinance or in the Charter. City Clerk Eikenberry said it was in the Code, not the Charter. Section C-48, Registration of electors. Bill Cowles said the Statutes say you register with SOE in the County. Also the Code states when the voter roll and equipment is available to the cities; the voter roll is now public record available to anybody. He recommended his attorney to work with ours to clean up the Charter and eliminate some things that are already State Statute. Chairperson Grafton began to review the City Charter page by page, while comparing the sections to the charters of other cities. The sections listed below are the only sections where a change was discussed. Chairperson Grafton read the Preamble for the City of Winter Garden and Orange County. Consensus of the board was to add a Preamble to our Charter that resembles that of the City of Winter Garden. Page c-11, Article 1, Section C-8-AA, Sewer and water systems. They had mentioned changing some wording regarding sewer and water systems. Member Howell pointed out on page C-l 0, Section C-8- V plainly spells out about public services and utilities to the extent permitted by law and that would include sewer and water; therefore, Section C-8-AA was repetitive. Consensus of the board was to delete the varagravh of Section C-8-AA. and revlace with a sentence statim! that section was left blank intentionally so that the numbering would not be disturbed Matt Garland, 1102 Ursula Street, asked if they could change the page numbers in the Charter to delete the letter 'C', because it is confusing with the sections beginning with the letter 'c' as well. Chairperson Grafton said they could not because that stood for Charter and it was important to stand out if a page (or pages) from the Charter might be reviewed with other pages from the Code. Page C-12, Article 3, City Commission, Section C-9, Created; composition, designation, election generally. Vice-Chair McKey said they were intending to reference the State Statute in that Section pertaining to the swearing in oath. City Attorney Palmer said that should be incorporated into the Election Section of the Charter. Lester Dabbs (Past Mayor), 619 Caborca Court, commented on Section C-9 that in the past he had supported that Commissioners be elected by district, but thought that was a mistake. He does not think that works anymore and he and others believe that there is some horse-trading going on amongst some Commissioners. He said a Commissioner of one district gets to vote for things city-wide and, therefore, should be voted on city-wide. Mr. Dabbs further commented on Section C-10, Qualifications, in the case of Commissioner Howell years ago, the City Commission voted to let someone serve 4 Charter Review Commission Meeting May 28, 2008 contradicting what the Charter says. Chairperson Grafton stated the Charter says that City Commission shall be the judge of the election and qualifications of the members and of the grounds for forfeiture of their office. Commissioner Johnson disagreed with Mr. Dabbs because our city is so large that it is important to separate it into sections. He added that horse-trading is against the law and he is not aware of it happening in Ocoee. He stated another idea would be to look at making it 5-7 Commissioners because many other cities our size have more districts. He has no problem with running city-wide because he did that for many years; however, he feels it is better for the citizens of each district to feel more important when they are the only ones voting you into office. Vice-Chair McKey said they had already looked at changing to 5-7 Commissioners and the citizens in the audience seemed to like the idea of 7 districts. Commissioner Johnson added that having 7 Commissioners adds more diversity and makes it much harder to bring 3 people together to do any horse-trading. He believes it would make for a better run government. Member Howell said changing to a city-wide election seems to have a 50/50 approval by the citizens. Half of them want a city-wide election, but the other half does not want other citizens voting on who serves their specific district. Martha Lopez-Anderson, 2438 Alclobe Circle, commented on the city-wide election and changing the seats to 5-7. She asked if both would be combined on one section of the ballot or would they be separated on the ballot. The board informed her that it would be separate. Member Howell said even if City Commission does not approve something, then citizens could still go forward with it themselves. Mrs. Lopez- Anderson said she thought there were a lot of convoluted things in that section and that is because they want citizens to be confused and afraid to take such action. Consensus of the board was to mark Section C-10 for further review. Page C-15, Section C-13, Regular and special meetings; meetings and records open to public; rules and order of business; record of proceedings. City Attorney Palmer said State Statutes pretty much state the same rules. City Clerk Eikenberry pointed out a part that stood out to her, which was that notice of emergency meetings should be in writing and served to Commission personally or left at their usual place of business. She asked if that was required by law or if it could be changed to state they must be contacted either by person, email, cell phone, etc. Chairperson Grafton asked if it could be reworded to that they are to be contacted personally, without saying how. Member Howell thought it was good to serve them personally, as it would be a sure way that they were notified because an email may not be read. City Clerk Eikenberry said an email without a response would not suffice as making contact. She suggested leaving it as "to contact personally" because it could mean any form of communication, whether it be in person, by email, phone, or any other form. Member Howell thought if it is important enough to have an emergency meeting, then they should be able to be contacted personally for it. City Clerk Eikenberry was concerned because they 5 Charter Review Commission Meeting May 28, 2008 currently contact them by email for emergency meetings and, apparently, that is a violation of what the Charter currently states. She said they call by phone or email Commission mostly to find a time that is convenient for all members to meet. The board decided to delete the word "written" from the notice and just leave it as contacting them with a 24-hour notice. Consensus of the board was to have the Citv Attornev review the section to lef!allv simplifv it. Chairperson Grafton announced that it was 8:29 p.m. and asked the board if they wished to continue or end their meeting at the appropriate time. Vice-Chair McKey asked to complete the section they were currently reviewing. He asked about the rules of notifying the public and who was in charge of that. City Clerk Eikenberry said the Clerk's Office was responsible for notifying the public for all meetings. Chairperson Grafton read a memo from the City Manager regarding a comment at the last Charter Review Commission regarding the City being top heavy. A graph was included depicting the number of supervisory/managerial employees employed by the City for the past 4 years. The memo stated: "Perhaps the statements made about the perceived increase in managerial employees is due to the restructuring of managerial positions and/or titles the City has implemented over the years (as all organizations do); however, each of these new positions or titles were accompanied by comparable managerial positions being deleted at the same time. " Lester Dabbs inquired about Section C-13 and asked if that applied to other committees as well as the City Commission. City Attorney Palmer stated that City Commission has the power to form all committees; therefore, the section pertains to all committees in the City. All committee meetings are mandated by the Sunshine Law and all are open to the public. Set Next Meeting Date The next meeting was scheduled for June 11, 2008, and would be a formal public hearing, which will be advertised in the local paper. The board will continue with the review of the Charter, picking up with Section C-14 at that meeting. Comments Lester Dabbs stated his appreciation for having the opportunity to speak to the board upon each section as they review the Charter. Martha Lopez-Anderson said she would not be able to come on June 11, 2008, and asked if she would be able to publicly comment at a future meeting. Chairperson Grafton said citizens were always welcome to speak and did not have to wait for a formal public hearing. 6 Charter Review Commission Meeting May 28, 2008 Adjournment The meeting was adjourned at 8:36 p.m. 7