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Letter to the editor

Bid to set up charter review panel falters

Officials get bogged down in the details trying to install a committee that will study the charter for possible changes.

By SHANNON TAN
Published May 4, 2005

LARGO - Not even establishing a charter review committee is an easy task in this city.

City commissioners recently decided to form a 15-member committee to review the charter before recommending changes to the commission by November. Proposed changes approved by the commission will be placed on the March 2006 ballot.

That was the easy part.

Before voting on a resolution establishing the committee Tuesday, Commissioner Mary Gray Black made a motion. She wanted to include a sentence that "every attempt will be made by the City Commission to place all changes proposed by the charter review committee before the electorate."

The motion failed 3-3. Commissioner Harriet Crozier was absent.

"There are a lot of people who feel this commission does not have the integrity that it needs," Black said. Her motion was an attempt to change that perception, she said.

But Commissioner Pat Gerard said that Black voted against several changes recommended by a charter review committee in 1982.

"We are not out there actively undermining the public's trust in our integrity," Gerard said. "I think we need to support each other in this process."

Next, they couldn't decide on how to pick the committee members.

Vice Mayor Gay Gentry did not want commissioners to appoint members. Instead, she said, officials should select 15 members through a series of ballots.

"I'm afraid if each one of us selects a person, whether good or bad, that person will be the Gentry nominee, the (Mayor Bob) Jackson nominee," Gentry said. "I think that will in some way inhibit the building of community of that group."

Black suggested each commissioner nominate one member and then draw the remaining eight names out of a jar. "The only way to keep the politics out of it is to have a true lottery," she said.

No one else, however, wanted to rely on the luck of the draw. Commissioners decided on preferential voting, and will appoint the top 15 vote-getters to the charter review committee.

But the commission hadn't even passed the resolution establishing the committee.

Could they pass the resolution then vote to amend it at the next meeting?

Black pulled out her copy on legislative policies. If a vote failed 3-3, they could make a motion to reconsider the proposed amendment.

Commissioner Andy Guyette made the motion. "Can we hear the motion again?" Gerard asked. "It's been a while."

The motion carried 4-2.

Then they voted on Black's motion. It failed again, 3-3.

"We tried," said Jackson.

The commission will vote again on the issue May 17.

[Last modified May 4, 2005, 00:57:19]