Charter commission moves to elect three council members per cycle, endorses council–manager switch; retains three‑reading rule

The Sunbury Charter Commission voted Tuesday to change the city’s council election cycle and signaled support for shifting to a council–manager form of government, while voting to retain the current charter provision that typically requires three readings of ordinances.

The commission approved language to elect three council members in each odd‑numbered election cycle (a 3‑and‑3 rotation) and to include transitional language requiring one two‑year seat to bring terms onto the new cycle. Commissioners also voted that the commission should proceed toward replacing the current mayor–council/administrator arrangement with a council–manager government and asked legal staff to prepare redlines showing the required charter edits for future review and for eventual placement on the ballot.

The votes come after several hours of line‑by‑line review of proposed charter updates in articles 3 and 4. Commissioners debated administrative details — including whether technical state building and fire codes should be adopted by reference or amended locally, how and when meeting materials should be posted online, and whether the charter should specify that individual roll‑call votes be recorded by name or left to council rules.

Legal counsel flagged one early request from a resident to add explicit authority for new community authorities to the charter. Mr. Bridal, outside legal counsel, told commissioners that new community authorities are established under state statute and are separate political subdivisions: “New community authorities are statutory … they are a separate entity when they are created,” and he recommended against adding authority to create them in the city charter.

Commission staff read a written submission from a resident, Paul Holler, that…