Council directs earlier charter‑review meetings; consultant to gather community input

Members of the Charter Review Committee and several council members asked the City Council on Sept. 2 to accelerate the committee’s meeting schedule so it can produce an orderly report before the March deadline set by the charter process. Committee member (public) Mister Martin urged the council “to try to speed up the schedule so that we can start meeting this month instead of waiting for the community meetings in October and December.”

Kaylee Cook, the city clerk and project manager for the charter review, told council the consultant will gather data from community meetings and that she was “working closely with our parks and rec staff to schedule those community input meetings for the charter, as early as starting this month.” Cook confirmed the consultant’s process pulls community input into the committee’s deliberations.

Council members asked the appointed committee to begin meeting more frequently so the committee could workshop proposed changes while the consultant collects public feedback. Council member Sullivan said he did not “think starting this process as far as the business meetings go in January is going to be sufficient” and asked for consensus to allow the committee to begin meeting in October so it could “get 2 meetings knocked out by the end of the year while research is being gathered from the community simultaneously.”

City staff noted the consultant had proposed a schedule intended to meet the charter requirement that the council receive a report by the statutory deadline in March. Several council members and the committee chair urged more aggressive parallel work between community outreach and appointed‑member deliberations. The council did not adopt an ordinance or change the charter at the meeting; instead members expressed consensus that the committee should begin meeting earlier and staff should coordinate with the consultant to accelerate public outreach and committee workshops.