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Committee refines City Manager duties and city attorney appointment language
Summary
The committee agreed to streamline city manager compensation wording, debated specifying quarterly verbal updates alongside monthly financial statements, and proposed adapting Rockport language so the city manager appoints the city attorney with council approval.
The Charter Review Committee reviewed and refined multiple sections of Article 4 addressing city manager responsibilities, reporting and appointment authority for the city attorney.
Members discussed adding a requirement that the city manager provide quarterly verbal financial updates to council in addition to monthly statements; several members urged avoiding hard-coded operational detail in the charter and left the frequency to council and staff to implement. On manager compensation, the committee agreed to simplify wording—changing the council’s authority to “alter” the city manager’s compensation rather than the longer phrase “raise, lower, or change.”
For the city attorney, the committee expressed a preference for importing Rockport Charter language with a small rearrangement so that “the city manager, after approval by the city council, shall appoint a competent duly licensed attorney,” a change intended to keep hiring responsibility with the manager while preserving council oversight.
The committee also discussed adopting Aubrey-model language for section 4.05 with the addition of the word “licensed” where appropriate (for example, to require a licensed peace officer in certain roles). S3 will compile the edits and return a clean draft for final review.
