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Home My WebLink About~Study Session - Charter Amendments AGENDA REPORT DATE: February 10, 2014 TO: Honorable Mayor and Members of the City Council FROM: Jill R. Ingram, City Manager SUBJECT: STUDY SESSION REGARDING CITY CHARTER SUMMARY OF REQUEST: At the January 13, 2014 Council meeting, Councilmember Miller requested an agenda item to discuss the potential for a ballot measure to extend Councilmember term limits. BACKGROUND AND ANALYSIS: Periodically, City staff will review the City's Charter to determine whether Charter amendments should be presented to the voters. The Charter was adopted in 1964. Since then, several amendments have been adopted with the most recent being March 2006. The City Manager, Department Heads, City Attorney, and City Clerk reviewed the Charter to determine whether staff could recommend any Charter amendments, Based upon those discussions, staff recommends the Council consider presenting to the voters the following Charter amendments: A. TERM LIMITS Section 422 of the City Charter contains a two consecutive term limit (i.e., 8 consecutive years) for councilmembers: "SECTION 422. Members of the City Council. Consecutive Elective Terms. A member of the City Council shall not be elected to more than two consecutive elective four year terms. (Amended 1974)" As shown in the survey attached as Exhibit A, other Orange County cities address term limits in a variety of ways. The Council may want to consider whether to place on the ballot one or both of the following issues: Should the term limit be extended for a third consecutive term? Should the term limit be eliminated? B. CITY CLERK: ELECTED OR APPOINTED? The Seal Beach City Clerk is an elected position. Section 400 states: "SECTION 400. Elective Officers, The elective officers of the City shall consist of a City Clerk elected from the City at large, and five members of the City Council, one elected from each of the five Councilmanic districts as prescribed in Article V." In the majority of cities, the city clerk is appointed by the City Council or the City Manager. Attached is a survey of all Orange County cities. As indicated, only 6 of 34 Orange County cities (18%) remain with an elected city clerk, and one of those 6 cities (Placentia) has a ceremonial elected city clerk. Therefore, the Council may want to consider whether to place on the ballot the question of whether the City Clerk should be elected or appointed. C. REVOLVING DOOR PROVISIONS Many cities have adopted ordinances preventing the city from hiring a former councilmember as city manager or a department head for a specified time after that councilmember has vacated the office. The Seal Beach Charter contains the following provision: "SECTION 602. Eligibility. No person shall be eligible to receive appointment as City Manager while serving as a member neither of the City Council nor within one (1)year after the member has ceased to be a City Councilmember." We recommend that such provision be both expanded to include all city employment and to lengthen the period of non-eligibility to two years. The proposed Charter amendment could take the form of the following: "Prohibitions. No members of the City Council shall hold any other City office or City employment during his or her term. The City shall not employ, hire or otherwise engage the services of any former member until at least two years after that former member has vacated his or her office. The City Council may, however, appoint such former members to any appointive board, commission or committee." If so directed, we will draft a proposed Charter amendment deleting Section 602 and replacing it with a new Section 423. Page 2 D. ELECTION ISSUES The following issues were considered in 2012. Staff seeks direction if the Council still wants to consider placing these items on the ballot: • Eliminate the general election/runoff process. Currently, the Charter requires the City to conduct a second, "runoff' election if no candidate receives 50% plus 1 of votes cast in the first election (Section 509). Very few cities of comparable size still have runoff elections. At the last election, a candidate received 49.6 percent of the votes, and the Charter required a runoff election. It cost the City $14,645 to have a runoff election in that district. (General Election cost $14,402 (3 districts) — consolidated with Orange County.) • Eliminate the 21-day waiting period before installation of elected officials. Historically, Section 400 stated that the terms of elected officers would start seven days after the election. The 21-day period was adopted in 2006 because Orange County informed cities that it would take the County 21 days to canvass the election. However, since 2006, the canvassing of the run-off election does not take that long. Thus, we recommend that the 21-day waiting period be eliminated. If the Council so directs, we will draft a Charter amendment eliminating the 21-day waiting period, and either: (a) incorporate by reference the Elections Code; or (b) draft language that would provide greater flexibility to the City in promptly installing elected officials. • Add a tie-breaking procedure to Section 400. Several general law cities have adopted ordinances or resolutions establishing a tie breaking process in the event two candidates for elected office receive a tie vote. The Council may wish to consider presenting a process to the voters as a Charter amendment to allow the City's electorate to determine how to resolve ties. While there are many ways to break a tie, the City Clerk has suggested the following concept: "In the event two candidates receive -the identical number of votes, the City shall determine which candidate shall serve by the casting of lots performed by the City Clerk at the next Council meeting prior to the certifying of the election." In the event the tie occurs in the City Clerk election, the City Attorney would perform the duties. • Miscellaneous clean up. e.g., allow the Council to call an election by resolution instead of by ordinance as required by Section 506 (Election Code only requires a resolution to call election). E. ELIMINATE ARTICLE XII (REGARDING BOARD OF EDUCATION) The schools in the City unified with the Los Alamitos Unified School District on January 8, 1979 (Resolution No. 2845). Thus, this Article no longer applies. Page 3 F. O'rHER ISSUES The City Council may have other Charter issues for discussion. ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT: There is no Environmental Irripact related to this item. LEGAL ANALYSIS: The City Attorney has reviewed this item. FINANCIAL IMPACT: The calculation of cost estimates for a consolidated election for a June 3, 2014 Special Municipal Election provided by the Orange County Registrar of Voters office is based upon a projection of total jurisdictional participation and an average cost per voter. The total jurisdictional participation is calculated by taking the current number of registered voters (16,669 as of 1/27/14), and projecting a 10% increase in voter registration. The average cost per projection formulae are based upon experience over past elections of this type. For the June 2014 election, the Registrar of Voters office is estimating between $1.40 and $1.80 per voter. Based on the above, the cost estimate provided by the County of Orange is as follows: Consolidated Election (June 3, 2014) with 1 ballot measure: $34,170 - $41,505 Cost per additional ballot measure: $ 8,500 RECOMMENDATION: That the City Council conduct a study session to discuss potential Charter amendments and provide direction to staff on whether the Council should consider presenting ballot measures to the voters in either a June 3, 2014 Consolidated Special Election or the November 4, 2014 Consolidated General Municipal Election. SUBMIT,- ED BY: (;��&(�-a Ji R. Ingram, City nager Attachment: A. Exhibit A -Term Limits/City Clerk survey Page 4 !ORANGE County Cities City Council Term Limits ;City Clerks Appointed vs.Elected Term Limit ! Reports To - - -- --- Alisio Viejo No Limit Alisio Viejo ! Appointed City Council i I Anaheim 8 Years Anaheim Appointed City Council _ — Brea No Limit Brea Appointea j City Manager Buena Park 12 Years Buena Park Appointea City Council Costa Mesa 8 Years Costa Mesa Appointea City Manager Cypress 8 Years Cypress Appointea City Council j Dana Point 8 Years li Dana Point Appointed City Manager Fountain Valley 12 Years Fountain Valley Appointed City Council Fullerton 12 Years Ful lerton Appointed City Council Garden Grove 8 Years Garden Grove Appointed City Manager Huntington Beach 8 Years Huntington Beach Elected Irvine 8 Years Irvine Appointed City Council La Habra No Limit La Habra Appointed City Council La Palma 8 Years La Palma Appointed City Manager Laguna Beach No Limit Laguna Beach Elected 1 Laguna Hills No Limit ;Laguna Hills Appointed City Manager Laguna Niguel 8 Years Laguna Niguel Appointed City Manager Laguna Woods No Limit Laguna Woods Appointed City Manager Lake Forest No Limit Lake Forest Appointed City Manager Los Alamitos 12 Years Los Alamitos Appointed City Council Mission Viejo 12 Years li Mission Viejo Appointed City Manager Newport Beach 8 Years Newport Beach Appointed i City Council I Orange 8 Years li Orange Elected Placentia 12 Years Placentia Elected Ceremonial Rancho Santa Margarita No Limit Rancho Santa Margarita Appointea City Manager San Clemente No Limit San Clemente Elected San Juan Capistrano No Limit San Juan Capistrano Appointed City Council Santa Ana i 12 years Santa Ana Appointed City Council Seal Beach 8 Years ;Seal Beach Elected Stanton No Limit i Stanton Appointed City Manager Tustin 8 Years (Tustin Appointed City Manager Villa Park 8 Years Villa Park Appointed City Manager_ Westminster No Limit 1 Westminster Appointed City Manager I Yorba Linda 12 years Yorba Linda Appointed City Manager i No Limit 12 35.29% Appointed 28 82% City Council 12 42.86% 12 Year Term 8 23.53% Elected 6 18% City Manager 16 57.14% --- 8 Year Term 14 41.18% 34 28 34 I Updated February 3.2014 EXHIBIT A