The Clute City Council voted unanimously on Jan. 9, 2025, to accept the Charter Review Commission’s recommendations and place four proposed charter amendments on the May 2025 ballot.

Jerry Atkins, chairman of the Charter Review Commission, presented the commission’s four proposals and the recommended ballot language. The proposals would: expand allowable uses of 40% of certain sales-tax revenues to explicitly include traffic signals and traffic controls and related street reconstruction; permit the city to publish sample ballots on the city website rather than requiring newspaper publication; clarify language about submitting a full charter rewrite to voters; and update the city’s recall-petition language to conform to state law.

Atkins summarized that the sales-tax language change would help the city dedicate funds for traffic-signal projects and related improvements and that staff intends to develop a schedule and plan to deploy such funds. The proposed change to publishing sample ballots would make sample ballots easier to access on the city’s website.

Council members briefly discussed the items and then moved to accept the recommendations. The motion to approve the commission’s recommendations passed unanimously.

Because these are charter amendment propositions, they will appear on the May 2025 election ballot for voter consideration; the council did not change the commission’s proposed language at the Jan. 9 meeting.