Charter Review Committee - Regular Meeting

Good afternoon everyone. We will call to order the April 725 meeting of the Charter Review Commission at 2:59 p.m. Roll call. Madame Clerk, manager, I am Kevin Cox here. Andrea Honeyut here. Yiko Mley, present. Kurt G. Okay, we got you via Zoom. And C Marillo here. Got you via Zoom as well. Okay. We would move for approval of the March 31st meeting minutes. However, I have one revision which would be the presence of Wade V. Yeah, I sorry I caught that when I was revising them. Um, I also changed in the first paragraph under call to order that you called the meeting to order and not staff. So, I made those two revisions. Having no other revisions, we would request a motion to approve the minutes from the March 31st meeting. Make that motion with the revision. Second. moved and properly second the approval of the agenda for the March 31st meeting.

and we'll move forward to agenda item number four, discussion of the draft amendment to section 2.5C. My apologies, Madam Chair. I think we need to take a vote on approval of the minutes. All in favor of the approval of the minutes for the 331 meeting? Hi. Hi. Hi. And now we will move forward to agenda item number four, discussion of the draft amendment of section 2.5C, filling of vacancies. I don't have any issues with it. Any discussion, Stephanie, on that item? Uh, no. I I think we we pretty thoroughly discussed it last time. And so this is just the the proposed uh based upon your direction. This is the proposed language. Um, and if anyone has has any questions or or any changes that they would like to make, we are happy to discuss. Just to recap that that provision was revised to provide for a 90-day provision and removal of the appointment by the governor um to allow for a special election if the position is not filled. Yes, that is the the effect of this language. Awesome. Thank you. So So I I did have a question if I may. Um, apologies. It's hard to tell who's

who's speaking or not, but um, when the time comes, I did have a question. Sure. Now, you can ask that now. Yeah. Okay. So, so in rereading it, maybe just the way it's it's seeing it all kind of together. Um, so there's we I saw where we extended from 30 days to 90 days, right? Which which is good. Um and then it says by the affirmative votes of not less than three members uh to fill and then if it's not if if such vacancy is not filled within the 90 days after then they shall appoint a special election right um it I guess I'm logically having thought about it how do we end up with a special election if there's three persons voting unless one of them abstains and the other two tie or the all three of abstain like how how does it ever end to a special the way it's written how would it ever land in a special election? Sure. Um I could could see a few different scenarios. One would be if the various town commission members are unable to uh decide on who they want to appoint and so we just never reach that point of having three of them in agreement. Um, I I could also see maybe in a more extreme scenario because the affirmative votes of not less than three are required. Um, you know, if we're for any reason down to a three member commission, getting that that um consensus could be even more difficult because you would need all three. Uh, so those are the two first scenarios that that come to mind. Um, there could also be theoretically a situation where finding the right candidate or or the right appointee would be difficult. Um, so Wade, I don't know if you have any additional thoughts as to how we could

um end up with a special election by not appointing someone in 90 days. Does this work? All right. I think the most likely uh one would be uh three members at least three members can't agree on the same individual to a point. Okay, thank you. So just further clarification Wade um so in the event that let's say three members did not agree on a candidate in that meeting would there be an alternate manner of revoting on that issue in a meeting? Yes. under this language or at least the way that I read and conrue this language, the town commission would be able to take a vote as many times as they want. Um, and you know, say it takes five or six different rounds of voting for them to to get to a point where three are in agreement. Uh, that that would be allowed. Okay. Any additional commentary on that matter? Hearing none, we would move to the presentation of additional information regarding the municipal charter provisions governing the term limits and voting districts. All right, I will just speak a little bit about this one. Um, per your request, I have prepared this table and it lists uh municipalities that are comparable in size to the town of Oakland and uh indicates whether those municipalities have voting districts and term limits in their charter. And I would like to be clear that by term limits I mean um you know a maximum

number of two four-year terms or something like that. not not simply indicating that you know a term is 3 years and then a person has to be elected again. That's not what we mean by by term limits. So just to clarify um and the the findings ultimately came out that most of the municipalities do not have voting districts. The only one that did out of the municipalities uh that I pulled was Bell Ale. And for term limits, the only municipalities on this list that have term limits are Hillsbor Beach, and that is four consecutive 2-year terms is the limit, and Fort Myers Beach, uh, it's two consecutive four-year terms. from the Florida League of Cities. Uh they have 187 uh municipalities in the state of Florida with a population less than 5,000. And you know, I reviewed your list, but it seems like we could go more as far as if there was an ability to search that information. And so I was going to kind of ask before I contact anybody, is it is it okay for me to contact somebody from Florida League of Cities to help with search of that database? Yes. Um the guy that was here, Chris Holly, um might be a good point. The guy on the Yeah. I mean that's stepped on or

anything? Any additional discussion with regard to the data provided from our attorney um with regard to the city or the municipalities with uh term limits and districtricting. I I I did have one. I think maybe it builds on what Mr. Cox had had mentioned. If I look at the table, um it's kind of where Oakland is now regarding population, right? But but I believe during one of the earlier meetings we had said the projection given that we want the charter to make it through for the next 10 years. In 10 years, we believe the population may double and and we may be closer to 10,000 if not above it. uh is there a significant change in the voting districts or term limits when we look at what we think the population will be in 10 years which is whatever it is 10,000 11,000 so I'm just wondering if if the table is representative of that bigger size or does it does it change do we know I don't know one way or the without a rigorous, you know, completionistous analysis. If uh the Florida cities does have a table with with information like that broken out, that would be wildly useful. Um I I haven't seen such a table broken out in that way from the Florida League of Cities, but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist. That would be very useful for all those analyses. Uh I would suggest you just from my observation around the state I don't know that you would see at least in the the cities I've observed either directly working with or or otherwise observing I

don't know that you would see substantial variation with respect to the districtricting until you got to a substantially larger number. I can tell you when you get into um uh up into the the 10,000s, the 20,000s and so on, you may start seeing more term limits. Winter Park, for example, has uh term limits. Um and they're somewhere what 25,000 right now or something like this. Whereas other cities within Orange County with a larger population than that don't have term limits. So, it can be part based on the history in that particular city, but you probably start seeing a little bit more as you get up into the uh tens and 20,000s on the term limit side, not necessarily on the district side. As I alluded to the last time I was here, I guess two meetings uh ago, start hitting some mathematical problems when you're when you're chopping up discrete geographic areas with a discrete number of individuals. Uh how that works out tends to work out better over much larger numbers than very small numbers even at the 10,000 range. Um, I did reach out to Orange County Supervisor of Elections and they are willing to send somebody to come talk to us a little bit more about districtricing and what they may look like. Um, I just don't have a date yet. I'm seeing if they could be here for our next meeting, but I don't know if if that's going to actually happen or if we're going to have to look at a date in the future, but um, they are willing to come out and talk to us about that. And I think coupled with your discussion with the supervisor of elections, we discussed um potential data regarding

our um voter turnout demographics to have a more um complete view of the potential term limits based on the population size that we have now and what we would anticipate in the 10-year period. um the increase at the 10-year period for the next review. And you'll notice I I did hand out a one pager that just it's more Orange County. Um S and Kurt. I'll have to get this to you. I just pulled it together today. Um but it shows I pulled out Orlando and Apopka because they were the outliers as far as population. Um but you can see population. And let me pull it up for you guys online. I have it available. Hold on. You can see population voting percentage um and and other demographic factors. So you can see in 2022 um Oakland had a 29.1% voter turnout. Um so not really bad. Um 2022 it went down a little bit. 13.4% 4% voter turnout. And then you can see, I think we talked about this a bit about the increased engagement recently. So in um 2024, our voter turnout, they did it a little different. Hold on. Is over here. Um it's third was 35.4%. And if you compare it to our other jurisdictions in Orange County, we were actually one of the higher ones. That was a March election, correct? That was a presidential preference primary as well as our um Yeah. contested election here.

Any additional discussion? You don't have the information from November selection. I only pulled it for the ones where we had a municipal election. We could pull it for November elections. It's It's available, but I was only pulling to see what our voter turnout was for our local elections. Okay. Hearing no additional discussion, I believe it would be prudent for us to um reconvene this issue at a time that the supervisor of elections is able to be present and further analysis of the information provided um in relation to our respective um increase. And just to uh manage expectations for everyone and at least correct me if I'm wrong, but I imagine it would be a staff person from the supervisor of elections office. I'm sure uh the supervisor would love to visit all over the county and she does, but um it's probably going to be a staff person maybe from their GIS mapping department or what have you. Sounds like Dan Helm is that person. Um and then he can pull in somebody from GIS mapping if he's if they're available. Okay, moving forward with agenda item number six, which will be our discussions of chapters 1 through three of the charter um in congruence with our decision to make sure that we did a full review of each of the articles in the charter.

Madam Chair, as as you go through the um the articles, I found sometimes it's a little helpful to know what each article is supposed to be doing or what they're supposed to be accomplishing. I can add a little commentary to that end if that would be helpful. Um, if you all wanted to start uh going in order here, article one, as the the name alludes to, it establishes the corporate existence of the town and sets up certain things concerning the form of government and powers. Particularly notable, uh, section 1.4 powers. This is basically, and you find this in most charters in Florida, this is a copy and paste directly from what's called the Municipal Home Rule Powers Act. Okay? It's meant to be incredibly broad on purpose. Uh, and it's usually advisable to leave it with that very broad language because that's precisely what the legislature was getting at. Usually, when you want to get down to the weeds on something else, you might do it elsewhere. But um uh generally this first article here is is getting at the basics creating it saying generally that it's going to be a mayor commission manager form of government. Of course when they specify these terms like that that that is a general reference to the type of government. The particulars of how all that works sit out in the rest of the charter. Um and then of course charters u municipal charters in Florida either contain the meets and bounds legal descriptions of the entire municipality or they make a reference to those being on file uh with the clerk's office. That is the modern trend because quite frankly you end up with pages and pages of needs and bounds legal descriptions.

So that's what you have going on in article one. If anybody has any questions or comment or anything concerning article one hearing none, we would move to article two, town commission and mayor. And article two is is getting into a lot more of the actual meat and potatoes of uh where you look at interesting things in the charter. This is of course the article that sets up the governing body of the town, the town commission and uh establishes uh the offices of mayor and vice mayor setting forth the powers of the mayor uh and the designation of the vice mayor to uh serve in that role in absence or in capacity of the mayor. Also, of course, uh dealing with all the other matters uh that are set out in here concerning uh elections, qualifications, vacancies, and uh compensation. I don't want to bore you all going through all the weeds of all that. I'm sure you all that. There's a lot of things going on. This uh this would be a good time if anybody has um either related to what's been brought up uh previously or otherwise new items concerning matters either directly addressed or touching on what's going on in article 2. Be a good time to at the last meeting. uh your office had recommended some changes to 2.5B. Are we there now? We certainly can be. Absolutely. And I'm actually uh bringing up um so I have in front of me

a copy of that memo as well. Just one second. I can follow along precisely with that. Is the is the final version in the fileshare uh staff or I can find it in email. Not a problem at all. Give you just one second. So sorry. And while you're looking, just to clarify, please ma, we had talked about delaying further discussion. So, district term limits. All right, we're skipping over that 2.3. Skip over. Well, while we're looking for that, I think um the proceeding section 2.4 related to qualifications, there was discussion at the last meeting with regard to the term residency. Um and I think Stephanie indicated, you know, that definition was pretty clear. However, we would lean to case law regarding any discrepancies in that. and I'm wasn't aware of whether you did some additional research um regarding that term and its definition. Uh I I did not prepare any sort of language that I would um bring forward to be considered, but uh I think probably now would be a good time to discuss um I mean Wade any legal opinions as to defining

residency in in a charter. So there are um this this is a matter that um is interesting for folks I'll tell you all over the state. All right. When you're dealing with the the question of residency question of residency uh with respect to being eligible to run for an office is intimately tied with residency to be eligible to vote in a particular place. All right. and uh eligibility to vote is uh in a a given place in a given election is governed by state law. All right. It's governed by state law and interestingly not defined in the statutes. It's as you alluded to, it's it's developed in case law. It really boils down to the conjunction of of uh two facts. All right. It is a uh an intention to reside in a particular place coupled with facts to back up that intention. All right, that's really what all the case law boils down to. If I said to you today, I'm a resident of Anchorage, Alaska, so I can vote in Anchorage, Alaska. Right. I may have an intention to be a resident in Anchorage, Alaska, but I don't have I myself don't have a residence in Anchorage, Alaska. Any place I can meaningfully show evidence that I reside in that place. So, I break one of those elements. All right? Otherwise, if you can have both of those elements, then you end up with u you end up with residency under the uh relevant case law. There's also other wrinkles that makes it very difficult to go defining precisely uh trying to put down in just a sentence uh precisely what you'd have in a

charter with regard to establishing or with regard to the definition of residency. There are matters that come up and case law that's developed this point. We've actually had to deal with this uh over in some of our coastal cities uh from time to time where it comes to be somebody's uh house is temporarily destroyed within a city and you have to live you're living in a hotel outside of the city for 3 to 6 months while it's getting repaired and so on. under the relevant case law, that individual, if they have they own that house and they have a present intention to return when they can, they are a resident of that house and can continue to vote there and continue to run there and so on, right? Um, so there are all sorts of fact patterns that the case law over the many decades, probably well over a hundred years, has developed how to deal with these things that'd be difficult to encapsulate into a sentence or two. One thing I can offer if there's any interest in it um is we can look a little further into uh maybe putting a little meat on the bones as to what sort of evidence the uh town may look to to in the first instance establish residency. All right. So, as opposed to changing the definition of residency, a little meat on the bones of all right, what sort of evidence in the first instance is the town going to look for or ask for to demonstrate satisfaction of that case law definition. This is something, for example, and I don't recall off the top of my head whether it's actually in their charter in their code. The city of Orlando does this. They have um some people think too rigorous. they have very rigorous uh evidence that has to be demonstrated to demonstrate your residency. Still using the the case law definition. So if there's any interest along those lines, that would probably

be a little bit more of a a fruitful route. I' I'd recommend being able to put a little meat on the bones on that. We could report back to you on that if that's the desire of the committee. Would that be better addressed as an ordinance? could be. Um but uh in any event, what what I would suggest is it's something again if if it's the interest of the committee, we could take a look at that further. It's not common. I just happen to know that city of Orlando has uh has a little bit of that fleshing out. I can't recall off the top of my head whether that's in their charter or uh in an ordinance. If we come back to you and and take a look at a couple of those things and find the trend tends to be in ordinance, we'll let you know that the as I think has been mentioned before, um the the the yin and yang, if you will, of charter amendment versus ordinance is if you put some things in your charter and then you find out it would be uh wise to include additional things, you're going back to the voters again. uh whereas with an ordinance you find uh we left something out relatively more straightforward way to deal with that. So uh and this could be one of those matters where the collective wisdom of those jurisdictions where they have something like that it's leaned in that direction. Is it legal to request a copy of a Florida driver's license? Th this is an example of of the type of documentation that you need to provide to substantiate. So yes, I I believe that is one of the examples that city of Orlando requires. I think we also discussed in the prior meeting um voter registration as one of

those elements of evidence of residency. Um but in light of your discussion, I think it would be fruitful to just take a look at um the reference provision in city of Orlando charter versus ordinance to be a little more well ab breast of you know what direction we may want to go if we'd be glad to uh take a further. Uh this is Kurt. Uh I don't if you can hear me or not, but I did have a question. um each time we task staff or the attorneys to do work for us, how is that build out and is that a cost to the taxpayer? It's a great question. Um our uh law firm is serves as town attorney for the town on a fixed fee. So, while I wouldn't invite you to ask us to research 50 different things if you're not really interested in it, uh any particular additional thing we're going to be taking a look at it is included in our fix. So, no marginal cost, no hourly cost for uh us taking a look at that. Thank you. Wade, were you able to pull up the memorandum with regard to Okay, I think we lean to you for some additional insight regarding those provisions in 2.5B. Sure. And um taking a look at can walk through those real quick because I I know you all took a look at it a little bit, but since we're in uh article two, we can take a look again. Looking at um 2.5B forfeite by disqualification. Um this one, this first one 2.5B was purely a grammatical cleanup. it when we had taken a look at it, we didn't think

it flowed particularly clearly, we think we're pretty clear as to what it means or is supposed to mean, but uh we thought that adding this a little bit of additional language here would uh make it make its meaning clearer. It's not meant to uh change uh the legal effect of any of it. And I will note, and I think it got noted at the last meeting, I understand as well, anything that's referenced as a cleanup in this memo is the the thoughts or intentions are at least two. One, um it is the intention that we're not changing what uh either the actual legal effect or um what we think the legal effect was supposed to be, if you will. Uh there's a piece where it looks like literally half a sentence got, you know, cut off in a copy and paste and so on. Um and generally with regard to most or all the things that are referenced as cleanup here, uh we believe those could all be put uh together under a single uh charter amendment that be put on the ballot that just makes general reference to uh the fact that it's cleaning up uh references in the charter and so on. We have standard language we've used in a number of jurisdictions that clearly expresses that but makes clear to the public we're not radically changing. While we're on the topic of vacancies and candidacy, I if I recall correctly at the last meeting a question came up and and please correct me if I misunderstood or misremembering the question. Um I think the question was about what if there are more than two candidates remaining after there is a vacancy in candidacy and under this language whether you have two candidates, three candidates, four minute, four candidates or or any number uh it it would be handled the same. And

um one one additional thing I would note about um moving on down here actually to um to in the memo to 2.5D about um uh well how it's originally styled filling of vacancies in in candidacy. We struck the the u filling of vacancies because nowhere in that language did it actually fill any vacancies. So it it took that out. Want to give you where where this concept comes from. I want to give you a contrast between two different types of elections and that is partisan elections and nonpartisan elections. Stephanie, did you all dive into that very much last time? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Let me let me give you a contrast of what you find in the Florida election code. All right. Florida election code contemplates partisan elections. Um, and what I mean by that is it contemplates partisan elections. It exempts out municipal elections as you do it the way your your charter and ordinances say unless the election code expressly says no, this applies to municipalities. So, municipalities generally around the state are nonpartisan elections. in the concept context of partisan elections under the Florida election code, you go through and you have um uh you have a primary, all right, where where folks from two parties are um running to be the partisan nom that party's nominee in the general election, right? So they have a primary in October just on the regular um cycle. And this is typical for example with state rep state uh senators and so on. If it comes to be um or for example in Orange County uh with our constitutional officers because I'll give you an example from here in Orange County years ago. Uh if

it comes to be that um each party has um nominated their candidate for their party to run in the general election. So you have a Republican and a Democrat running in that election. and say for example the uh Democrat resigns or passes away while they are the party nominee running for the general election. All right, this happened years ago just as an example here in Orange County with Earl K. Wood. You all remember Earl K. Wood. He was the uh property appraiser for no, pardon me, the uh tax collector for uh bajillion years over 50. All right. he ran one more time and he passed away while he was the Democrat nominee uh running one more time. The way the Florida election code provides for filling that vacancy, it's not automatically the Republican wins in that instance. In that instance, pursuant to some rules set out in it, the Democrat party has the opportunity to then choose someone else to put into that spot after the premier. And that occurred. they put in um Scott Randolph who is now who went on to win that election is now the tax collector. But uh in big contrast with partisan elections, you have an outside entity. You have a political party that could make some choices about whatever. the universal um observation that I've seen in in everything with regard to vacancies in candidacy when you have a situation where you have nonpartisan elections, there's no one to go to to ask, hey, who's who should we put in in its place because you're not in nonpartisan elections, an individual is not running as a representative on behalf of the department. So it's this just lays out basically what would be

um it it just lays out in written form you know precisely what would that two people running one of them resigns withdraws passes away or whatever the other one wins. If all of them come out then you know you got whatever. If you have uh uh three or more and one of them comes out, you still have two and things go on and and so on. So, this just kind of lays out what would be the natural circumstance in a nonpartisan instance there. All this language here is is just cleaning it up to make it a little Any question more questions about we had already talked about uh 2.5 C um earlier in your agenda and I think this memo yeah was in order. So that's everything in article two from that Other than the two matters uh that that uh that have been brought up previously uh concerning term limits and um districts, were there any other um topics or or thoughts for changes to this article? So I think in two maybe 2.6 is um the right spot for it. Um and this shows up also in our list of items for future discussion. Uh there was a note in there about compensation comparison. Um while while there's no significant compensation for the commission now I think the question was should there be uh and specifically to combat the the not combat maybe is a strong word but a as we look at low turnout for participants for let's say

districtricting if we were to go that route it would be interesting to understand does compensation improve that in any way and if so what were some comparisons for populations of the target size um which Oakland wanted to become. So I don't that was a point I don't know if to answer your question is that is that this the right time since I think it falls in section 26 I think it's worth um worth bringing up uh at this point um let me make sure I understand is is you're bringing up more of an inquiry about whether or not there's there's any evidence or data to support the idea that paying substantially more on a uh council or commission will lead to more candidates running. Yeah. So maybe two-part question, right? First part is is exactly that, right? I if if there was compensation, does it have an effect on turnout and thereby kind of alleviate some of the concerns that districtricting would paint us in a in a um in a in a poor spot because of low turnout? Meaning if there was some compensation, does that have an effect? I don't know. Right. That's one question. the other one. And just for clarification sake, by turnout you mean folks I take it you mean folks running for office. Great clarification. Yeah. Folks running for for a position. The other part was just a gauge a comparison amongst peer towns with a population of Oakland's target. Do other commissions have any compensation? Is it the same as Oakland's or is it is it different

with regard to let me take the second one first. Um if there is um a database with the Florida League of Cities broken out with some kind of basic points. I would speculate that that one of them might be commissioner or council member compensation. um that might be a worthwhile it's always a worthwhile thing to ask if if the league happens to have such data. Um I I I will tell you yeah collecting that collecting that information otherwise particularly uh along across a large segment may be um intractable but when we just we just sent in a lot of data to FLC for city city staff. Is that one of the pieces of data? It they did ask that. Cool. So hopefully they do they yeah they may be able to spit that out and that might be useful just for for folks to see. uh you know ours um our current charter provides uh just that it's um the primary matter is is that it's set by ordinance and but it can't take place or you know it can't go into effect until um commencement of the next commencement of terms after the next general election which is a typical provision but there are other charter provisions that actually specify numbers in the high inflation environment that's increasingly seen as not perfect in the long term. Um, but in any event, that could be a useful piece of information. With regard to the first question, that that sounds like that might be an interesting uh whole semester long political science research project because you're looking you're looking for a correlation between, you know, higher numbers and more people

running. I I don't know that that would be an easily pull, you know, something to easily pull that piece out. Yeah. No, understood. If if the data point's not there, then it's not there, right? I'm not I'm not advocating a full-on research, right? Al although anyone who's interested in can certainly do so, but but yeah, I think it's more just to gauge Oakland as a town amongst its peers of towns that are approximately whatever it is 10k in population, right? Um so maybe that that's that sounds like Florida League cities might have that data point and they just be requesting it. I I can check for that. I do want to add though that originally um from what I've been able to find, the compensation for our commission was actually higher and they actually lowered it. Um and that the reason they lowered it, my understanding was so that they didn't have to pay taxes on it. So that's why it's at 5.99 instead of 600 or plus. Okay. Um any additional discussion with regard to the point raised on compensation? Then we would move to article three administrative and look to wade for a discussion on the purpose and um absolutely. Um so uh as it indicates article three administrative this is when you're getting into um your other branch of government from your from your governing body the um town commission getting over to the town

manager and related uh administrative roles including uh references to uh hours and duties of the town manager. how uh they're appointed and removed. Uh and then of course uh other offices, town clerk, uh police department. Uh town clerk is is a uh common uh office you find in charter is not universal. Um in city manager form of government's uh forms of government of course city manager or town manager is essential characteristic of it. Um having reference to the police department and uh matters uh relating to the police department is actually a a matter you do see in a number of charters particularly ones dating back from older times. Uh it is not universal. Even a lot of cities that have um that have police departments don't necessarily call out police department as uh you know separately in its administrative article. um reference to the uh um position of town attorney, which is a pretty universal uh reference you find in municipal charters in Florida. Um reference here to expendure of town funds. No funds of the town shall be expended except pursuant to duly approved appropriations. That's kind of a a truism tautology. That's that's the requirement under Florida law anyway. So saying it out loud. Um and uh the um finally with respect to town boards and committees, the commission shall establish or terminate such boards and committees as may deem uh may deem advisable from dime. Boards and committees shall report to the commission. Um this is

um the norm in council or or uh uh commission manager forms of government. But uh I have seen instances where uh you have uh just one officer making uh determinations of not suggesting that there is some variety among uh different charters but this is by far the most typical boards and committees will be creations governing body as a whole. So, um let me take a look uh just back on our um suggestions uh here for revisions uh on our initial memo. Um section 3.4 uh references acting town manager. As you can see from that bracket there, uh they they had the when when you see a bracket in in legislation like this, either in a charter or an ordinance, it means the code conifier stuck in a word to make it make any sort of sense at all. Particularly when you have an article like 'the' and so on. That's that scene is fine. But as you can see there, it really doesn't get at a complete set of thoughts because it's talking about the commission may revoke such designation. We don't even know what designation it is except by reading title to that section. It just happens to be as the the memo references and I I think Stephanie may have referenced before. This language is very standard stock language you find in a lot of municipal charters throughout Florida. And it is uh the language that uh we put in that memo is very typical of uh the language you find among charters. The idea being

to um allow the town manager to designate uh another employee to um to run the shop in the temporary absence or stability. Uh this happens all the time throughout the state of Florida. Uh that someone goes on vacation, they're not going to be immediately available. Someone's going in for the hospital for a couple days. Somebody's going to be this, that, or whatever. somebody else has got to run the shop. Somebody else has got to plan run on time, if you will. Um, this uh the language uh uh specified here makes it subject to the approval of the commission. That is typical. I will tell you that is not universal. Okay? There are a number of cities where it's simply the town manager just designates somebody. Not subject to any other approval of anybody. But almost universally it is subject to um the town council or the town commission undoing that putting someone else in temporarily. That's if something really goes off the rails during the two weeks when the actual town manager is away. very rare but can happen. Um the language that you have here in this memo uh does kind of lean in the direction of of you know putting that power of approval not choosing in the first instance but retaining in the commission. All right. What this means effectively is you need two things. the town manager need to designate somebody who's going to be in case something unplanned happens or somebody's got to run the shop the next day somebody's going to be making things happen. So that would be somebody's designated the commission through that hopefully never using it. Um and then you could have instances where town

managers going on vacation six weeks hence and bring it up to the town commissionation these days be appointing so and so to be the acting town manager gone I would ask for move second all in favor say um so that's just filling in those gaps there so it's it's crystal clear what we're talking about with that town manager and I'll be glad to answer questions on I'm kind of formulating in my mind. So, this is in the instance of an acting town manager's absence or disability. And obviously in light of the recent removal of the prior town manager, we would revert back to the mayor appointing a town manager subject to the approval of the commission in in a in a circumstance of removal versus absence or disability. Yeah. So, uh uh let me draw a distinction uh for you just the um these are kind of vernacular terms how they're used in the um kind of in the business. Um you got acting town manager then you might have someone that they call an interim. Okay. Um interim is usually getting uh is usually getting more at not uh temper in the sense that the town manager is and is always you know is staying the town manager but they're just indisposed to interim just means there is no town manager and someone's going to be the town manager to be quite clear. Usually when someone says interim town manager they're the town manager. It just means

it's just you're conoting to the public they're the town manager, but they might be the town manager just for a short period of time until you decide someone else is the town manager for a longer period or indeterminate period of time. Um, if that if that helps. Uh, so it's why typically you don't you don't really see the term interim town manager in a lot of charters because the idea is they're the town manager. It might just be you're the town manager for x period of time while we search for someone else to be the town manager for a longer period. And the you know the the fact patterns can get a little different from place to place and so on. There have been uh I've seen a lot of instances where folks become the interim city uh manager or interim village manager, town manager, what have you and then just by um even without any further action. I know there was in this instance uh which is always the preferable way to make sure everybody clearly knows what's going on. uh I've seen instances where folks just stop using the term interim and that person is continues to be there because they are the city manager or town manager what have you and they just keep on going. Um but hope that helps you with that distinction. acting is just talking about got a town manager that person's indisposed or in the hospital or on vacation or that any additional commentary with regard to those distinctions or other provisions contained within article 3. I did have one question uh on three uh section three. I I see the distinction. I guess maybe this is uh more for um the legal folks, but I it's obviously called

out for the police department and you said that it's kind of standard that the clerk be called out the police department. There's a long-standing history and charters to have that. I'm curious, is it normal to not have the fire? like why police called out but not fire. And and part of that also is um kind of the recent town uh topic around the fire department and it being the whether or not we could use Winter Garden or whether it had to be our own. I'm just kind of curious if that if that's something you see in charters called out or is is Oakland's unique? Great question. Um I I cannot I'm not saying there isn't one, but I cannot recall an instance where I have seen um a fire department called out separately in a charter. Um but as I said, I I have seen uh police departments referenced a number of times in charters. I think it just in my observation from seeing where I've seen it most often where you have those provisions that usually trace back a long time. I don't need to tell you, you all know law enforcement officers, uh, when you really get down to it, they have an immense amount of power. They're they're the ones with the power to actually arrest you. You know what I'm saying? So, in in any jurisdiction, there's a lot of power that goes with that. So historically at least there's, you know, been some interest in being very keen on who's going to be running the police department and this and that. I can tell you in a couple places I cannot recommend this, but it it it dates from old old history. There are a number of cities uh in Florida that that's for the past 80 some odd years, the police chief is elected separate and apart from everything else. Not suggesting that at all. Although I will note we elect sheriffs in all 67 counties. You know

there are historical reasons for that too. But um uh I I've seen it a lot less I can't recall an instance not saying there isn't one. I can't recall with regard to fire department but I I think it has to do with history and I think it has to do with power. uh fire department is very important obviously but um they don't have the power to arrest you at least in a you know a regular basis. All right. Thank you. I would also add um one sort of distinction that I see between the police department and fire is that the town of Oakland has its own police department and so that is funded and controlled by the town itself. uh whereas the town contracts with Orange County to provide fire services. And so with the fire services really coming from an entity that is not under the direct control of the town, uh I think there is um not as much reason to to spell out exactly what their duties and powers are in the charter, if that makes sense. Yeah, it does. Thank you. Thank you. That's exactly where I was going with that. What she said is a lot more relevant. Yes. It's this. It's the Orange County Fire Department and our station 37 is just a division of the county's fire department. Wait, I did have a question. Um, I was noticing just recently the town clerk has protections in that if you were to get rid of them, it have to be approved by commission. I don't see that in the police chief's wording. Um, but they have state of Florida projections. Is that why that might be? Uh, I doubt it is. Why? Because um uh law enforcement officers do have uh

some of their own. Are you talking about the protections about the This is all flooding back now. uh the protections about uh the opportunity to request a hearing before the governing body and all that great stuff. Yes. Um I don't think that's why because that that's a relatively recent creation. I think this predates that probably predates all of that. But um I was just curious because they're appointed the same way but they're not removed the same way. I think that just um I can speculate as to why they made that distinction here.

When I read this language, the the town clerk language in section 3.5, um it states the town clerk may be removed by the town manager with the approval of the commission. And and so just to draw that distinction, I I to me that language doesn't necessarily indicate that a hearing would would be permitted or or required or any such thing. I it almost I mean I read it as something that could be added to a consent agenda under circumstances where under correct and and and I I haven't dusted off my memory of of the particular statute that lease was referring to in a couple years. I did have to implement a couple years ago. My general recollection there's a statute tucked away where uh when a um police chief in particular has been terminated, they have an opportunity doesn't have to be prior to the termination. I think it's uh within they have to be given notice of a within a period of time they have the opportunity if they want to come and talk to the governing body to try to have It's about as much as I protections with regard to law enforcement officers are a subject of frequent legislation by the uh by the Florida legislature. So trying to anticipate or guess, you know, what the law is going to be a couple years from now as to all those protections, not really a fruitful endeavor. So probably wouldn't want to try to put anything in a charter to try to match that. Am I looking why is the termination not addressed in the charter? That's why it was that was my question is why is one say one thing and the other one is absent of that. I mean there must be some history there or else

it was just inadvertently left out. I don't know. I mean what what other charters may say. We may want to look at that. But it section 36C to me looks like it's trying to be one of those very broad statements. Somebody knows something. I don't but it it seems funny though that it's not specifically the police chief may be removed by that. Yeah. And I think it's I think um with regard to the police chief um police chief will be subject to the general removal provisions up in the manager hours and duties. Okay. So uh up in 3.3A uh the manager shall be responsible for the hiring supervision removal of all town employees makes the salary of town employees within salary range set by town commission. uh town manager shall appoint all department head subject to the approval of the town commission. Reading all that together, barring a more specific provision elsewhere in the charter, that means that generally the town manager is uh in charge of hiring and firing all employees. You layer on an exception to that to appoint department heads. You also need the approval of the town commission. But you don't need the approval of the town commission to remove any employee including those department heads except ones when you get down even more specifically listed for example and um I know that may be a little cumbersome to kind of read three layers of it all together here but that's how legislation reads all the time. You got to start from general to specific and um whenever you have a

blanket statement and a more specific statement in any sort of legislation. The specific thing that Trump's over you're saying we're okay. I'm saying it it is addressed in here when you read all these parts uh together with each other. Um there a desire to change the legal effect on that. Okay. Charter does specify who has the authority. All on with respect to town clerk, city man. Any other questions or uh things to discuss concerning matters in article three? I'm clear. No other discussion. Okay. We've completed our discussion of articles 1 through three. Um any delayed thoughts or commentary with regard to the prior discussion or clarifications required or necessary. Hearing none, we would move to public comment. No members of the public being present, um we would look to discussion items for the next meeting. Um item agenda number

eight. Actually, Madam Chair, I'm I'm just looking over uh minutes from the last meeting. I knew uh that there were I think I've addressed some of them uh that that have come up where where there were kind of some more in the weeds election related matters and and so on. Um, while I'm with you here, I wanted to take the opportunity to provide any further clarity on any uh other kind of general matters that may have come up. Stephanie, are there anything anything jumping to your mind? Some of the things I uh uh hadn't uh hadn't touched. Uh I I recall and I can't remember in what context the word was being used because it does appear throughout the charter all over the place, but the word there was some discussion about the word qualified. Um and and some folks may be asking about it would it be advisable to define that word? Um, and I let me search for where I remember which context it was because I remember you mentioned that to me and I I think I can offer some thoughts on that. It may have been section 2.4. The last sentence in that section reads, "Only qualified electors of the town who have resided continuously in the town for at least one year preceding their qualifying date shall be eligible to hold the office of commission member or mayor where which uh which was that 2.1 2.4 at the very end last sentence the qualified electors of the town. Okay. in in the context of [Music] um yeah in in in the context of that particular sentence qualified electors

is I guess you could almost make qualified um uh it's almost superolous there it primarily referencing the next word electors um and whether or not someone is an elector of a given jurisdiction is a matter of state law. It did not used to be decades and decades and decades ago. So, you'll see some old references in charters where it'll it will purport to say who's allowed in a town to vote in the town and not allowed to vote in the town. All that went away decades ago. anyone if if your residency is uh for the purposes of registering to vote is within a municipality, you are a qualified elector of that municipality. If it's in the unincorporated county, you're qualified elector of just the unincorporated county, etc. So that's completely a creature of state law on that. Um when we proceed on in that sentence, only qualified electors of the town. So you're an elector of the town pursuant to state law who've resided continuously in the town for at least one year preceding their qualifying date. Um and there it's the great thing about election law or a lot about a lot of areas of law use the same word to mean related but slightly different things here. Uh there that reference to qualifying is the date you are qualifying for office. Now, qualifying for office is actually well defined in the Florida election code. All right? It does not necessarily mean when you initially um uh open up a campaign depository. All right? Um you can do that well in advance. Qualifying for an election happens during the qualifying period. All right? Which is a discrete period of time. You can be you can open a campaign

depository and um and designate a um uh designate a depository and name your treasure and all that stuff well in advance of that and be collecting money and so on, but you're not qualified until qualifying week usually comes and you actually qualify. That's all defined in state election. All right, so that's where you'd measure that from uh in that context. So, hope that helps. Again, very similar word but different context, but that's that's precisely what and the um number of the other things I was elaborating on I remembered from a conversation with Stephanie as to other matters on over your minutes. Nothing else is really jumping at me. So sorry to Wade I think one of them was what is considered continuously so only qualified electors of the town who have resided continuously. Sure. Um, yeah. And I just thinking through how often I see that particular adverb or something like it in other ones. It's it's um the important word I would suggest in that clause is resided. Okay. So resided as I

as I indicated residing or residence with respect to someone being an elector or so on is a um is a continuous state absent those two facts I mentioned changing. So for example I reside in Mland. All right. I go to condo in Cocoa Beach once a month on the weekends. Um, and there with my wife and daughters. Uh, the nights I'm sleeping over in Cocoa Beach, I still reside in uh, when I travel, if I travel to Colorado for two weeks, I still reside in. So, it really goes to the state of matters there pursuant to the relevant case law. Again, those two main points, you have uh a an intention that you reside in a place and you have facts to back it. And again, we can get into some detail as to what evidence would be taken to establish and so on. Hope that helps a little bit to to add to that. I was thinking about the the coastal city example that you provided earlier, Wade. Um, and and I agree with you that the word continuously is almost superfluous here because if you think about that circumstance where you've got a sitting council member and then his home is destroyed by a hurricane and so he's got to go stay um outside of the city limits for a few months. We would we would call that continuous residency based on based on the hypothetical. Yes, that those facts. Yes, hypothetical facts. And so really the word

continuously doesn't doesn't do a whole lot. I I will tell you what it does do. Okay. Um I will tell you what it does do. It does very little, but I think it does do something. I don't think you could with that language there. And I don't think it would be a fair reading in any event, but I think this helps clarify it. I don't um think someone could uh reside six months in the town of Oakland and then change their res just affirmatively. I'm going to change where I vote and I'm I uh change their residence to Albuquerque, New Mexico for three months and live there and vote there and you know all this stuff and then come back and do another seven months and say well I did six months and then it's it's got to be it's it's got to be unbroken. Um so I think continuously there it's it's saying it's got to be preceding the qualifying date. So running right up to it and it's got to be un I think it's doing something but not very much. This is reminding me thing where people trying to say that which would be strained reading. Yes. Um I believe also at the last meeting I'm recalling there was some discussion about snowbirds that was brought up and and you know how how would snowbirds be how would they fall here under the existing charter language and would it be advisable to make any amendments to address snowbirds? Snowbirds um snowbirds are going to depend on what those individuals are actually doing with respect to things like

registering to vote. It is it's not my uh experience with folks that they you know change or they're registered to vote twice a year when they're you know moving back up north and back and so on. They're registered to vote one particular place and that's where it is. It tends to be for many reasons including homestead protection. If they're between here in North Carolina and here in Michigan tends to be they stay registered here 100% of the time. um even though they may live three months out of the year somewhere else uh and so on. So long as they're not registered anywhere else and they maintain their residence here. That second element, the facts to back it up. Someone who lives three months somewhere else uh would remain by live I mean that's where they are sleeping every night for you know a couple months or what have you but they're registered to vote here, maintain a residence here and so on. um that's going to check the box. Now, somebody going to vote for somebody who uh who three months out of the year lives in Michigan? Don't know. That would presumably be very relevant uh you know, fact to come out in an election. But when you're looking at the the test of under Florida law, what would constitute residency in an election uh in an election context, that's what you're look you get into real problems if folks are registered in both places though, for example. It's a whole different It sounds like we would almost get at addressing the the question of snowbirds by potentially adding in some of those City of Orlando provisions about what type of of evidence do you need to bring to demonstrate that you are a resident. Yeah, I I that those sorts of inquiries, however, however um you know, put

together, I think would get at the relevant underlying facts because if someone happens to visit Oakland 3 months out of the year, but they're registered to vote in Michigan and so on, they're not registered here and they're not whatever, um that's not going to pan out under the analysis that that I was just laying out. However, I think earlier we did indicate we wanted to you to provide us with what those evidence factors were from city looking city of Orlando has and anything else that jumps out at us other jurisdiction but that's that's a local example. Just as a matter of um discussions for the next item, we would lean to those additional um moments of research associated task with the attorneys to provide um with regard to the evidence of residency. Um second item would be follow up with the lease um with regard to the supervisor of elections and their potential for appearance at the next meeting or a future meeting um compiled with the data um from that office with regard to that you actually you've provided that so I think we can strike And then I'll also do research on the compensation comparisons. That's all brought up for that section. And then just taking a look at the additional amendments um four, five, and six potentially at least speaks with the league. Would

you like at least to inquire just about the other um whether if they have a magic spreadsheet they can spit out, you know, information about term limits and uh about uh districts versus at large. Would that be useful to Sure. That's awesome. And just in repetition, a review of articles four, five, and six. It looks like seven could be for another meeting or Yes, I think that that would work just fine. Any additional items for consideration for the next [Music] meeting or thoughts? See the um just looking down our um memo here. We had some revisions uh with a suggestion for y'all to take a look at. Yeah, they're in uh for uh and I believe in uh insects. So, um, that that could be some things to discuss a little further in addition to anything else hearing. No additional items. Um, sorry, Ma. Um, Mr. Chair, one second. uh a request and maybe it's just me, but I I do have like a stack of papers I try to

flip through and and as we we're making changes, I is it um I guess my own ignorant words, is there like a document with draft changes turned on or track changes turned on where we could see kind of some of the things that we've preliminarily agreed to and some of the stuff that's getting changed because it it's getting hard for me. It's getting a little difficult to track down what what we've covered and what's left. Is that possible? What I would what I would suggest is this. Um, and it's it's a really important thing just to conceptually work through things. I think we could put together kind of a a running set of lists as opposed to a a um single copy of the charter with all the strikethroughs and underlines. that'd be kind of mixing mashing all the the different potential changes here which might get a little confusing. Um instead it may uh make sense for us to put together um uh for example the the you know kind of a draft of of the cleanup charter amendment just with those uh cleanup changes uh put in. Uh then charter amendment uh we'll talk about at the uh beginning here about the the um changing the matter concerning the filling vacancies and those are kind of two discrete charter amendments that that I think you all may have some initial positive inclination towards. we can have those uh put together and that can kind of be the the tracking of those. Um and as we see whether or not there's anything else that be should be thrown into any of those pots, we can firm up a final recommended ballot language. Yeah, that I mean that would be helpful for me. I don't know how the the rest of the folks in the room feel about

that. Well, sure. Looks like our next meeting is slated for April 21st at 3 p.m. And hearing no other concerns, we would move to adjourn at 4:23. Make a motion to adjurnn.