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Winter Springs commission votes to form charter review committee, pledges public workshops and comprehensive review
Summary
The Winter Springs City Commission voted unanimously Feb. 23 to use its 2010 charter-review resolution and Commissioner Sarah Baker’s outline to form a charter review committee that will hold public workshops and return recommendations for possible ballot questions in a future election cycle.
Deputy Mayor Kate Resnick moved and Commissioner Sarah Baker seconded a resolution Feb. 23 directing staff to use the city’s 2010 charter-review foundation and Baker’s proposed outline as guidance for a citizen charter review committee that will hold public workshops and report back to the commission.
The commission voted unanimously to approve the motion. Mayor Kevin McCann said the goal is to include residents in a comprehensive update, not to handcuff the committee, and to return recommendations to the commission so voters can decide whether any proposed charter amendments should appear on a referendum.
City Attorney Anthony Agogany told commissioners the charter does not currently require periodic review and that any city-initiated charter amendments would ultimately need an ordinance and a voter referendum. Agogany also said the commission may choose among models for how to conduct a review: a citizen committee, a targeted commission-led review, or other approaches the city has used in prior decades.
Commissioner Paul Diaz asked whether the effort would require expensive consultants or lobbyists and whether the city would be creating a long-running committee without clear deliverables. Resnick and Baker said the intent is to include public workshops and to use an outside organization only for limited education or guidance (for example, a League of Cities presentation), not as a full-time lobbyist contract. The commission asked staff to return a clearer cost estimate for committee meetings and staff time.
The motion directs staff to prepare a resolution using the 2010 template, incorporate Commissioner Baker’s document as an outline for topics to be examined (including mayor and manager roles), require public meetings for the committee’s work, and plan the timing so any city-initiated questions would appear on the next feasible election ballot (staff noted that a short timeline would likely push proposals to the next election cycle).
