Former planning director urges Topeka committee to add enforcement mechanisms to charter

Bill Feander, former planning director for the City of Topeka and currently a lecturer at Washburn University, told the Citizens Government Review Committee on May 21 that the city charter draws “bright lines” between the legislative and administrative sides of city government but contains little to enforce those prohibitions.

Feander said the charter language is explicit — council “shall have no administrative powers” — but he told the committee he found no effective enforcement mechanism when he reviewed the document. “There is no enforcement of those bright lines between executive side of the government and the legislative side,” Feander said, adding that the lack of enforcement can allow repeated interference that harms morale and contributes to turnover among city managers and senior staff.

Feander described a pattern he observed in which council members sometimes exert influence on hiring, contracts or day-to-day operations, and he said that informal cultural practices can perpetuate that behavior. He told the committee the average tenure for the city managers he reviewed averaged roughly 2.3 years when interims are included; excluding interims the average was under four years—figures he presented to illustrate continuity concerns.

Committee members and staff discussed existing tools and procedures: the mayor’s role in advising council members, the city attorney and HR processes, the civil service commission for certain employee grievances, union grievance/arbitration pathways for police and fire, and the existing code of ethics that council members sign during orientation. Staff told the committee that employees can raise complaints to HR, the city manager or the city attorney and that some avenues for investigation exist, though members said those channels may not always feel independent when complaints involve elected officials.

The committee directed staff and several members to look for examples of charter penalty provisions and enforcement mechanisms in other Kansas cities and to produce the city’s code of ethics and related orientation materials for review. One committee member suggested the group examine whether a penalty or censure clause could be added to the charter or whether better disclosure and training would provide effective deterrence.

No formal action was taken to amend the charter; the committee asked staff to return at the next meetings with sample language, charter amendment procedures and comparisons from other cities.