City council voted the other day to put several questions to the public relating to our city charter. The election will be held November 3, 2015.
Evidently someone thinks that it is getting too troublesome to be transparent about council’s land dealings. One of the city charter ballot initiatives to be considered reads:
Should sections 3.9 C and 3.18 of the City Charter, relating to the use of ordinances, be amended to allow the City Council the option of using a resolution for acts that do not specifically require the use of an ordinance pursuant to other applicable law, including the conveyance, lease or grant of a franchise of city property, the adoption of an administrative code, and the establishment, abolishment or alteration of any City departments?
Proposed ordinances have to go through a multi-week process with the public first being notified and then ultimately a vote being taken.
Resolutions simply require a majority vote of the council members present. Resolutions can be added to an agenda after the agenda is published. Emergencies do come up, after all.
These people are asking for the right to have city council make deals on property without the public having a chance to react.
We deserve better
Brutus
elpasospeak 
Why not? They can tear down City Hall and build a ball park without public input, so from there, the sky is the limit.
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I don’t like any of it, but I’ll comment on the last section in particular about “establishment, abolishment, or alteration of any city departments.” Just last week the ADA coordinator hired about 6 months ago was replaced with another guy, the Sun Metro Lift supervisor, Mr Julio Perez. Perez has been doing some serious advocacy and communications with the disability community and has improved the Lift service since he came onboard. Apparently, he has been handed the ADA Coordinator job on a silver platter, but he will also remain on his current position as Lift supervisor…..which means he’ll now do BOTH jobs. We members of the disability community don’t believe this is a positive move for the community to saddle one guy (and a proposed assistant) with the 2 jobs considering that both jobs are important for us. The change was done almost overnight to our knowledge, without any notice, without announcing the position, without giving other candidates competitive equal opportunity, and Mr Perez has zero experience as an ADA coordinator, and Mr Perez sat as chairperson on the selection committee when the previous ADA coordinator was hired…..Mr Perez was never a candidate himself! So there you have a few departments being “altered” by Tommy G….no ordinance….no resolution….no transparent process….and maybe they hope to do a resolution AFTER the fact if this charter amendment passes. Pretty smooth operating, wouldn’t you say?
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The public will no idea what the city charter ballot initiative is about.
It reads. . . “Like stereo instructions.”
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No surprise. The biggest financial backers of local politicians are a handful of developers and the Times is part of the club, never raising serious questions about development or transactions involving public property. Also, the charter advisory committee, which is recommending ballot initiatives, included the former city manager who was personally responsible for some of the most egregious breaches of public trust, including property transactions related to the ballpark.
The proposed change would simply make it easier for them to do the things they have done in the past, but without having to hear or deal with public opinion. They are trying to avoid a repeat of having to sit through hours of public objections as they had to do with the ballpark.
What this tells you is that they have some specific property transactions in the works and they want to push those through without regard for what taxpayers think.
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