Rebuttal to City's Misleading FAQs
February 19, 2018
The City of Palm Beach Gardens spent $60,000 of tax-payer dollars to hire a consultant to produce a campaign for the March 13 Election. The flyer, robo-call and website have the theme “help fix our charter” and much of what is in this purportedly neutral campaign is misleading at best. Here is a rebuttal for each of the most egregious statements found on the ‘Fix Our Charter’* website.
What is the Charter Review Committee?
The Charter Review Committee is a volunteer committee which consists of five Palm Beach Gardens citizens and experts each appointed by one member of the City Council. The Committee was established in August of 2017 and after several months of reviewing the City Charter they made their unanimous recommendations to the City.
Response: The Charter Review Committee met 4 times on August 18, August 29, September 6 and September 25 presenting their report to the City Council on October 12th. This is not several months. Two of the members were Lobbyists, one of the members was NOT even resident or voter in the City. Typically a charter review committee DOES meet for several months.
What does Charter Amendment Question 1 do?
The measure will fix the Charter so that items that are no longer legal because they conflict with state statute, are internally conflicting, deal with administrative matters, and are confusing or unclear are updated or removed.
Response: Much more is done in this repeal and replace of the Charter –
Changes in Ordinance 26, 2017 – from current charter – Question 1
Substantive or Policy Changes
- Definition of a term (for term-limit purposes) as half or more of a 3 year term. Any service less than that would not count if individual wants to run again
- Change timing of elections to be set by ordinance instead of in charter
- Define how vacancies are filled and changing how soon elections need to be held to fill those vacancies
- Throwing out legitimate votes (after ballots already printed, sent out and voted) for candidates who have died, pulled out, etc, from the total used to determine majority of votes cast in determining the winner.
- Council can’t give themselves a salary increase in the current fiscal year
- City Manager residence requirement removed
- City Manager annual review removed
- Merit System and Personnel system removed (add to Charter in 1996)
- Need for any Charter Reviews removed
Changes due to State Law or statutes
- Oath of Office removed
- Details of Council responsibilities removed
- How to remove/recall council members removed
- Council can have no say in hiring/firing/organization structure – total hands-off
- All references to City Clerk removed
- City Treasurer removed
- Annual audit removed
Cleanup changes
- Council manager form of government terminology
- Organizational meeting date(s), powers duties of Mayor, defining a quorum, providing for pro-tempore member
- Other sections moved around or added
To truly understand – need annotated existing Charter, annotated Exhibit A from Ordinance 26, 2017, and Charter Review Committee report
Where can I find Exhibit A for Charter Amendment Question 1?
You can find Exhibit A for question 1 by clicking here.
Response: Yes – one can now find Exhibit A. However the voter cannot see what was removed or changed from the current charter without looking at an annotated version of the existing charter and an annotated version of Exhibit A
What does Charter Amendment Question 2 do?
The measure will fix the Charter so City Council members are limited to a maximum of three, 3-year terms. These term limits, if passed, would be retroactive to the date of election to the Council for any member as of March 13, 2018.
Response: The Charter is NOT broken. The City already has two 3-year term limits passed in 2014. This is misleading by not stating that in the ballot language and in the FAQ.
What does Charter Amendment Question 3 do?
The measure will fix the Charter by requiring a member of the Council, upon serving the maximum term limits, to sit out for a three-year period before being able to run for Council again.
Response: The Charter is not broken. This question allows term limited Council Members to run again. This is new.
What does Charter Amendment Question 4 do?
The measure will fix the Charter so that an election for City Council is won by the candidate who receives the highest number of votes so no runoff election is needed.
Response: The Charter is not broken. This is changing from Majority wins (50% plus 1) to Plurality wins and the ballot question still does not define that. The City has only had 3 run-off elections since 2000 and has spent more on this no-candidate election than at least 2 run-offs would cost.
*Note – the city has already made changes to their campaign website. For example the description of the Charter Review Committee previously read:
What is the Charter Review Committee?
The Charter Review Committee is a volunteer committee which consists of five Palm Beach Gardens residents each appointed by one member of the City Council. The Committee was established in August of 2017 and after several months of reviewing the City Charter they made their unanimous recommendations to the City.