Charter review panel recommends redlined Panama City charter to city commission

The Charter Review Advisory Board voted unanimously to recommend a redlined revision of the Panama City charter to the city commission, after the board reviewed changes presented by the assistant city attorney and amended vacancy timing language.

The advisory board’s legal advisor, Assistant City Attorney Caroline, walked members through the redline and highlighted several substantive edits, including adding a preamble, moving boundary and ward-mapping descriptions to records kept by the city clerk, aligning the mayoral election with the presidential cycle in proposed language, relocating utility authority into a consolidated city powers article, and deleting finance- and procurement-related sections found to be superseded by state or federal law. "I went ahead and just incorporated that language under section 8," Caroline said, describing insertion of amendment-procedure language that references Florida Statute 166.031 and clarifies where referendum effective dates would be recorded.

Why it matters: the redline consolidates and clarifies where operational details live in the charter versus the municipal code and ensures the charter text does not repeat provisions already controlled by higher law. Caroline also noted a historical review of pension language and confirmed that past commission minutes support the municipal code editor’s deletion of out-of-date retirement-system language.

The board also revised vacancy rules. Members said the ordinance-derived timeframes in the draft—10 days to appoint and 21 days to hold an election—were impractically short. The committee adopted edited language to require the commission to fill a vacancy within 30 days and to hold any election "as required by Florida law" rather than the prior fixed 21-day schedule. "My suggestion was to have the commission fill that spot within 30 days and then, if they can't, hold an election as required by Florida law," a committee member said; the board accepted that approach.

Formal action: A motion recommending the charter revisions, subject to final legal review, was made and seconded and passed by a 5–0 vote. The motion was moved by a committee member and seconded by the chair. Staff said the redlined clean version will be circulated immediately, and that the packet must be submitted by August 24 if the commission wants the measures on the November ballot.

Next steps: The recommendation will go to the city commission, which can accept, modify, or reject the board’s draft; if the commission places the proposed revisions on the ballot, statutory timelines will govern notices and dates. The advisory board left the record open for counsel to make minor legal clarifications and for staff to circulate the clean redline for final review.