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Council debates timing for charter amendment ordinance; some members urge delay
Summary
Council members questioned moving forward immediately with Ordinance 55003 — a proposed charter amendment — and one member asked to table it until closer to the November 2026 election to allow more readings and public discussion; council did not finalize a decision at the committee meeting.
The council held a committee discussion about Ordinance 55003, a proposed amendment to sections 7.05–7.07 of the city charter, and whether to advance it immediately or defer to a later meeting to allow additional readings and public deliberation. The ordinance text was read at committee; the mayor noted that the filing deadline for submission to the board of elections had created timing pressure and that the item had been treated as an emergency for the purpose of getting it on the ballot for November 2026. A council member said she was uncomfortable voting to advance a charter amendment more than a year before the election and urged tabling the ordinance until May or June of next year so the council could complete three readings over the summer and allow the council seated at that time to consider it. She asked Mayor Coleman to “just table this… and put a date on it” so council would not forget to revisit the matter. Other council members said passing the ordinance tonight neither benefits nor hinders the timeline for November 2026, and the committee discussed whether passing it now would require edits to Section 4 of the ordinance to reflect updated dates. The committee did not take a final vote to table or advance the ordinance during the meeting. Ending: The committee left the timing unresolved; staff will return with a recommendation and any required edits to ordinance deadlines for council consideration at a future meeting.
