Charter committee drops proposal to extend post-employment ban for former council members

A majority of members of the City of Edgewater Charter Review Committee voted on April 14 to remove a proposed amendment that would have extended a post-employment restriction for former council members from one year to three years.

The motion to reconfirm Question 4 and advance it as a recommendation to the City Council was made by Donna McDavid and seconded. In the roll-call vote recorded by Interim City Clerk Tubin, McDavid voted yes and three members — Mandy Bullard, Patrick Fisher and Linda Mosher — voted no. The clerk said the committee would take Question 4 out of the set of recommendations and staff would reword questions 5 through 12 accordingly.

City Attorney Rollins had advised the committee that even if language reads as requiring an annual "state of the city" report or other specific actions, some provisions are aspirational without an enforcement mechanism; the committee debated whether the three-year employment restriction had previously passed and whether to reintroduce or strike it now.

The committee's decision removes the item from the package of charter questions staff will forward to the City Council for consideration. Rollins and staff stressed the procedural timeline: if council forwards measures as ordinances, they will undergo first and second readings and must be submitted to the supervisor of elections by Aug. 18 to appear on the November ballot.

The committee scheduled one final meeting to review a cleaned, renumbered set of questions before staff sends the finalized language to members.