There are General Law cities and Charter Cities. General Law Cites typically follow state and federal law. Charter Cities can kind of make up their own rules as they go along: The following is a typical measure voted on by the people of Davis, California proposing changing their city to a Charter city.
http://cityofdavis.org/cmo/measure-n.cfm
The City of Newport Beach last changed their Charter after a vote of the people with a vote on “Term Limits” in 1994. (Someone said that no changes had been made since 1958!) Hmmm, how soon they forget! In 1994, only Charter Cities could adopt “Term Limits:, making that distinction from General Law Cities, however after the passage of “Term Limits” for County and State officials in the late nineties….General Law Cities can now adopt “Term Limits” as well.
This November, the City of Newport Beach is going to offer seven or eight different proposals to Change the City Charter. One proposal which was not included was: Voting directly for a Mayor of the City, by the people. Right now, any sitting councilperson only needs four votes out of seven to be elected by their political pals and/or for trade offs to various committees and board assignments.
The changes being brought forward this November include: Changing “Gender Designations” (so-called Gender-Neutral) …from Councilman to Councilperson and the like. How about one prohibiting offshore oil rigs? Restricting the ability of the City to TAX residents. Of course, that doesn’t mean that fees and licensing can’t be jumped with impunity. One of the largest revisions, was the section about the “Civil Service System”. Hmmm, perhaps something to do with pensions or retirement pay? Who knows? One other interesting change is that of downsizing the current Oil Well footprint within Banning Ranch, near the Huntington Beach border from 466 acres to about 20. Thusly, allowing the build-out of Commercial/Residential developed on that land. A particularly offensive Charter Amendent would eliminate the need of a vote of the people and a Charter Change – if the City were to sell beachfront property!
So, here we are…..updating the Newport Beach Charter! Hmmm, sounds like a lot of money maybe involved in Charter updates – doesn’t it? What about electing our own Mayor? Nah, seemingly – a non-important issue when it comes to Representative Government! Charter or General Law! Those “good old boys” are already happy as clams – why make people running for office actually have an agenda? And what about the funding mechanism for our debt in building our new $50 million dollar City Hall in Fashion Island? Did we vote on that? Or was that, just the location of where the New City Hall should go?
City Manager Dave Kiff however, assured these reporters that any time we wanted to change the Mayor electoral process – we could, as long as it coincided with any General Election cycle.
We may not want to hold our breath! In the meantime, we will look forward to an upscale New City Hall – which is supposed to be finished in about 18 months! Impressive!
*Dave Kiff the Newport City Manager responded:
Hi Ron –
You write, “A particularly offensive Charter Amendment would eliminate the need of a vote of the people and a Charter Change – if the City were to sell beachfront property!”
This is hard to understand, but bear with me.
The proposed change, like the current language, BOTH require a vote of the people. Today, the Charter says that you can’t sell ocean or bayfront property at all, yet the voters have amended the Charter what, six (6) separate times just to override that section as if it doesn’t exist! Adding section after section to the Charter itself.
Therefore, the Charter today indeed allows the sale of ocean or bayfront property as long as the people vote to override the prohibition.
This hard-to-understand but non-substantive change would just say that if you want to sell bayfront or oceanfront property, you don’t have to vote to override the prohibition – but you do have to vote to approve the specific sale.
If nothing else, it will save paper with all those charter re-prints J
The changes to Civil Service have nothing to do with pensions – they are essentially about protecting (legally) the CSB’s ability to oversee disciplinary or termination issues.
Dave
————————*Respectfully rec’d – thanks Dave very much for the clarifications.