ANNA MARIA – The Anna Maria Charter Review Committee has nearly completed its review of the city charter and will soon recommend potential charter amendments to the city commission.
The city charter establishes how the city government is structured and defines the roles of the mayor, city commissioners and charter officials. The charter can only be amended with the majority support of the city’s registered voters.
Chaired by Chris Arendt, the committee that also includes Stevie Coppin, Scott Isherwood, Pat Olesen and Chuck Wolfe held its third meeting on March 8, joined this time by Mayor Dan Murphy.
POTENTIAL AMENDMENTS
During Friday’s meeting, the committee members compiled a list of potential charter amendments to be reviewed and voted on during the committee’s final anticipated meeting on Thursday, March 21.
The committee tentatively supports a charter amendment that would limit building heights to no more than three stories. The Bradenton Beach and Holmes Beach charters limit building heights to three stories, but Anna Maria’s charter currently contains no such provision.
Anna Maria’s comprehensive plan limits building heights to three stories, but the comp plan can be changed by a fourth-fifths supra-majority vote of the city commission. A charter-imposed height limit could only be eliminated or modified with the support of city voters; or the proposed consolidation of the three Island cities into Manatee County or the city of Bradenton, which would eliminate all three city charters. Murphy supports a building height amendment and he surmised the current omission is a previously-unrealized oversight.
The committee will decide whether to recommend an amendment that would require a supra-majority, four-fifths approval of the city commission and/or a voter referendum to sell, vacate or lease long-term a city-owned property. The charter currently requires the adoption of a city ordinance supported by at least three commissioners.
The committee tentatively supports an amendment that would clarify and better define the two-year residency requirement placed on mayoral and city commission candidates. The committee noted the current residency requirements don’t apply to those actually in office.
The committee also tentatively supports a charter amendment that would better clarify and define who’s considered a city officer, including the city clerk, city treasurer, city attorney and public works superintendent.
The charter currently allows one city commissioner to call for a special meeting. The committee members will decide whether to propose an amendment that would instead allow special meetings to be called by the commission majority, the commission chair or the mayor, but not a single member.
As a grammatical clean-up, the committee will decide whether to propose an amendment that would replace gender-specific pronouns such as “his” and “her” with non-gender-specific terms.
Once voted on by the committee members, the proposed charter amendments will be included in a final report presented to the city commission. The commission will then decide which, if any, proposed amendments are placed on the general election ballot this fall. The commission could also place its own proposed charter amendments on the ballot.
ADDITIONAL DISCUSSION
The committee also sought input from the mayor regarding the length of mayoral and city commission terms and what might be done to attract more city commission candidates and fewer appointed commissioners. Murphy suggested the current two-year terms for mayors and commissioners remain in place.
At the meeting’s end, Murphy thanked the committee for their soon-to-be-concluded efforts and said, “Thank you so much for your diligence, hard work and most of all your creativity. I was impressed with the questions you asked and the avenues you pursued. You cared about what you were doing here.”
