Single-member district proposal gets little interest from Cape Coral City Council
Proposed charter changes discussed
Cape Coral City Council gave a hard no to two of the eight items brought forward by the Charter Review Commission Wednesday morning, rejecting a proffered change to single-member districts and making Council the judge of qualifications.
Mayor John Gunter and council members Bill Steinke, Joe Kilraine, Jennifer Nelson-Lastra and Laurie Lehmann each said no to both single member districts and judge of qualifications.
Council members Dr. Derrick Donnell and Keith Long said that they could not provide any outright rejection of the advisory board’s recommendations as of Wednesday.
“At this point I want to hear from the people,” Donnell said, adding he wants the public to get into it and give the council some direction, “so we will be better informed to make a better decision for the community.”
Many of the council members that had a hard no for single member districts gave the explanation that Cape Coral is still a growing city that needs full representation from all council members, not just those in a particular district.
“The reason I feel the City of Cape Coral should remain at an at large form – the inequality between services available and infrastructure throughout our city at this point. For every member of this council to only be concerned about their own district and electorate looking forward to them representing their district – I don’t think we are in the position,” Steinke said.
The other section that received a hard no addresses council authority when a member is charged with conduct constituting grounds for forfeiture of office. As proposed, the charter change would provide that if found by a “supermajority of six affirmative votes of the council to have committed conduct constituting grounds for the forfeiture of their office, said member so charged shall be removed from office.”
Kaduk said 4.12 is “bullying language,” and if a council member “misconducted themselves, we are not judges, the court system should take care of it.”
Kilraine said he would not want to sit at the dais and judge a fellow council person for what they consider to be good standards of operation.
“Clear cut evidence is done through a judicial process. Let the law enforcement do the judicial process and govern that,” he said. “I think it makes sense from a legal basis to be solid and well-grounded as opposed to a population issue.”
The Charter Review Commission is a charter-mandated board of seven members and two alternates that is appointed at least every six years and vested with the duty to review the city’s bedrock document. The panel makes recommendations for changes for council consideration. After public review, Council can opt to bring some, none, or all of the proposed changes to referendum for voter consideration. Council can also bring any proposed changes forward on its own.
No provisions of the city charter can be changed without voter approval.
Commission Chair Richard Leon thanked the council for allowing them the opportunity to go through the charter and make recommendations before he went into presentation that highlighted each of the eight recommended areas of change.
The recommendations address charter sections 4.01 and 4.02 mayor and city council; 4.05 candidate qualifications and election; 4.06 mayor; mayor pro tem; 4.08 council and mayor; compensation, expenses; 4.11 vacancies; forfeiture of office; filling of vacancies and 4.12 judge of qualifications.
City Attorney Aleksandr Boksner said he had not validated or verified the validity of any of the language brought forth by the commission, as he has not received consensus from the City Council for at least five of the amendments. He said the language presented will most likely not be the final ballot language as it must survive a constitutional challenge if need be.
“If five are prepared to move forward with the amendment with portions of the charter, I will have to bring that by way of ordinance, ballot language at 75 words and all of you will have to approve that,” Boksner said to council, adding that the ordinances would then go to a first and second public reading.
Council is limited to nine amendments – five in the Primary Election and four in the General Election.
The deadline to submit language to the Supervisor of Elections is April 20 for the primary and July 6 for the General Election. Boksner said when council determines which amendments they want on each elections ballot it will help set their timeline to make sure they have an appropriate amount of time to get everything accomplished before deadline.
The council will further discuss the remaining six amendments and bring forward any they would like to include in discussion, along with any the city manager might have at its Nov. 12 workshop.
Among those that will undergo further discussion is increased compensation for the mayor and council members.
Leon said they picked the 50 top cities for a data analysis of compensation. He said the panel took the average of what the body of commissioners thought was an appropriate amount of pay — $70,000 for council members and $80,000 for the mayor.
He said this section also includes approval of any additional increases by ordinance, which provides protection for the people.
“Any type of stipend or conversation about your compensation package in the future for any council, they would have the opportunity to be able to change that through ordinance to allow public debate and comment,” Leon said, adding a supermajority vote — six — would be required for passage.
Any subsequent increases would not take effect until the next council was seated after a General Election.
Lastra was a hard no for a salary increase amendment, as she does not think the economy is right and it is not a good time.
“It’s definitely a full-time job. None of us signed up to do it for the money. When the economy is stronger, it is something we can revisit,” she said.
Gunter said he would like to see the data used for the compensation determination and maybe have an outside third party collect the data and bring it back to council.
The statement received some backlash from council.
Long said the data has to come from the city, as it is objective data.
“There is no way our staff couldn’t do that from an objective basis,” he said, adding the city should not spend more money on consultants. “At some point we have to do the work. To me, I am a hard no on the number figure on the ballot. Adding $5 dollars to our salary and it is going to fail – setting a hard figure on the ballot there is zero chance.”
Kaduk agreed that she does not want to hire anybody to come up with the information.
Boksner said his office collected the information from the 50 cities and will provide the information to the council.
There was also a suggestion to use the Florida League of Cities to collect the data for the compensation.
To reach MEGHAN BRADBURY, please email news@breezenewspapers.com