Editorial | Charter changes possible, it’s time to follow along
The Cape Coral Charter Review Commission has drafted some substantive changes to our city’s bedrock governing document, its charter.
The advisory board is near the completion point of its duties to the Cape Coral City Council, which appointed its seven members and two alternates in April.
The commission will meet next Thursday, Oct. 9, to review and prioritize some changes it recommends be made to what, in essence, is the Cape’s municipal constitution.
As currently proposed, the draft amendments would change which voters determine the make up of the city’s elected board; would increase the salary of the members of the city council; would allow council to change its own salaries by a super-majority vote; would more definitively define how those seeking office would need to prove their qualifications for office; and would give council the method and authority to remove a member for conduct “constituting grounds for forfeiture of office.”
The commission has done quite a bit of work, and we thank them for their efforts.
Some details because we are going to urge to public to become involved from this point forward as the next step, following Thursday’s expected commission vote, will be for city council to take up the recommendations and determine which, if any, should be placed on the ballot for voter consideration next year:
One possible change, with the greatest potential significance to residents, is 4.01. Mayor and city council. It would establish single-member districts.
Currently, the city’s charter calls for the election of seven members and a mayor, each to be elected “at large.” This means every voter in the city can vote for each council member — who must reside in the district they seek to serve — as well as the mayor, who may live anywhere in the city. Simply put, each voter may vote in each council race on the ballot meaning voters citywide determine who represents them on the elected board.
If the charter is amended as proposed, each individual voter will determine who fills two seats — the council member to represent their district and the mayor. Voters will no longer have eight votes, usually four per election year as council’s four-year terms are staggered with four seats at a time on the ballot.
Single-member districts did not get a lot of support among commission members through its vetting process but was deemed an important enough talking point that it should be among changes brought to council for its consideration.
Given the public outcry when Cape Coral City Council nearly doubled its renumeration with a no-discussion, consent agenda vote in December of 2023, we predict taxpayer interest in two other proposed charter changes, both within 4.08. Council and mayor; compensation and expenses.
The charter review commission proposes an amendment that would bring the compensation rate to $70,000 per year for council members and to $80,000 for the mayor.
The amendment would specifically prohibit council from increasing its own compensation — “… salary, any retirement benefit, any stipend, or any other type of compensation paid to its members” unless — shoe drop — “such increase is approved by Ordinance, subject to public hearing and public comment, after a super-majority of at least six (6) affirmative votes, and such increase shall not be effective until after the first City General Election following the passage of the Ordinance providing for the increase in compensation.”
The stipends passed in 2023 added a payment of $3,333 for city council members and $5,000 for the mayor to salaries that, at that time were approximately $40,620 for council members and $46,604 for the mayor.
Salaries currently are increased as cost-of-living adjustments. The last voter-approved compensation amendment, in 2015, had originally set compensation bases at $32,600 for council members and $36,600 for the mayor with any increases limited to the amount of the Social Security COLA.
The as-proposed changes to the documents to establish residency within a particular district — including a change that would require that candidates must have lived not only in the city, but in the district they seek to represent continuously and full time for the entire calendar year before qualifying, are in reaction to another controversy where an elected council member was accused — and criminally charged — with misrepresenting her legal residency.
Thursday’s meeting begins at 5 p.m. It will be held in Conference Room 220A at City Hall, meaning it likely will not be televised. The meeting is open to the public.
If how and who fills the seats on the council dais, and how much we pay those individuals to represent us, are issues of importance to you, this is the ground floor.
We urge you to follow along.
Breeze editorial