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Charter review committee asks council to place several charter edits on November ballot
Summary
A city committee recommended a package of charter updates — mainly to conform to state law and modernize wording — including annexation language, eminent domain clarifications, publication rules, council compensation, meeting frequency and residency/bond provisions. Staff will prepare ballot language for council review.
Mister Schallenberg, presenting for the Charter Review Committee, told The Colony City Council the committee is recommending several charter amendments to appear on the November ballot, mostly to conform local text with state law and to remove archaic language.
The package includes adding phrases such as “in accordance with state law” to annexation and contraction provisions, clarifying eminent domain procedures, modernizing street‑power language (removing obsolete references to telegraph poles), and limiting the parks/control language to city‑owned parks rather than homeowners‑association property. The committee also proposed changing the publication requirement for ordinances to language consistent with state law rather than a specific bulletin‑board posting at city hall.
The committee recommended packaging non‑substantive corrections and procedural updates under a broad Proposition 1 that would correct misspellings, punctuation, grammar and conform references when state law changes. "This is simply the recommendation of the committee," Schallenberg said, noting council could accept, modify or reject any item.
More substantive proposals the committee flagged include raising monthly compensation to $350 for the mayor and $250 for each council member, changing the charter requirement from "one meeting every month" to "at least 12 meetings each year" to avoid technical noncompliance when regular meetings are canceled, and removing the city secretary from a residency mandate while retaining a residency requirement for the city manager. The committee also suggested replacing mandatory language requiring official bonds with permissive language ("shall" to "may") and updating an outdated bond amount that previously read $10,000.
Committee members and staff emphasized the changes are intended to align with current state practice and reduce the need for frequent charter updates if state statutes evolve. Schallenberg said staff would prepare final ballot orders and return them to council on the Seventeenth with dates and figures filled in. There was a brief correction during the presentation about the filing window: the committee first cited a late‑July deadline, and staff later clarified the county submission timeline pushes the practical deadline into August, so council directed staff to confirm final dates when the packet returns.
No formal council vote was taken on the package during the meeting; councilmembers thanked the committee and asked staff to bring a final version for action at the next regular meeting.
The Council is expected to consider final ballot language at its next meeting before the municipal clerk files measures with county election authorities.
