Public - workshop

Thank you.

All right. Can everyone hear me? All right. Well, we are going to go ahead and get started. I assume Commissioner Street and Commissioner Hughes will join us momentarily. But tonight is just hopefully just a quick check in. Why do you have to have a quorum? We're not voting on anything. I mean, we have three of them there.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. So anyway, sorry about that. So anyway, this is specifically just to talk about the final tweaks to the charter. As you know, the charter review finalized and their recommendation back on June 10th. And then on June, I believe, the 15th, we had a workshop with y'all. And kind of talk through that. And there were a handful of adjustments that y'all gave us feedback on. And so Nevin and his team over the last couple of weeks, specifically probably Caroline, who's you can see her hands over here. on that. But she's here as well. So I did circulate those a couple of days ago with the red line version and the clean version of those changes. And so we're going to be sharing all of that with y'all today. Just again, not to vote, but July 14th and July 28th will be the first and second reading to get all this buttoned up. so that we can then put the referendum for the charter amendments and changes on the November general election ballot. And so I think, first off, I want to make sure, has everybody gone through the red line version and seen some of the changes? I think, you know, to me, the big ones were around the agenda setting and then, you know, There was some further clarity around the abolishing and some of that kind of harsh language at the front. And then, Caroline, there was a third big one that they wanted us to fix as well. What was that?

Section 32 has been retitled Rules and Procedures.

Rules and Procedures. That was the old setting instead of setting the agenda. I think that might be one. And I do not know where Commissioner Street and Commissioner – Grainger, can you please text them, Brandy, and make sure they're tracking this? And I'm going to go ahead and share really quick. All right, so we will go down to section number 32. Let me not quite zoom in on that so much. I went right past it. All right, here it is right here. So you can tell obviously what was struck through and what was put in there right now. Let me go ahead and try to open this a little bit so I can see if anybody does. Okay. Okay. And so I don't know, it looked like Commissioner Hughes might be having some technical difficulties, but if y'all wanna look at this real quick and make sure that you guys are good with this, this is a suggestion from Nevin and his team, but it basically puts all of the ability to control the meetings and the agendas with the commission through the rules of procedure, so. Nevin, anything you want to add, sir, or Caroline?

Caroline might add something, but that's we just incorporate into a charter that rules of procedure would be approved.

And the list that you see in this, we put language that suggests that you can include it, but are not limited to this list. So it's very flexible. You can not include something on this list or include something else. But all of this came from the current rules of procedure. These are the things that the rules of procedure are addressing currently.

I think this addresses the concerns I had in the previous language and it moves these activities to Rules of Procedure where I think they appropriately should be handled.

All right. Then obviously going back to the opening, This was, was this the section where it was, yeah. So if y'all look at this, you'll see where we got rid of some of the abolished language and just says the existing charter for the municipal government of the city of Panama City, remains organized. And I think this addresses some of that initial introduction for the harsher language, so. Did you text Granger? All right. Yeah, Commissioner Street has texted, and he regrets not being able to join, but he said he read it, and no worries on his end. He's good with it. And what was the other big – there was a third kind of – if I remember, there were kind of three big tweaks we were going to make, or maybe four.

The language with the police and fire department.

Okay, yeah. What page is that on?

Article 11.

Article 11.

It's page 26 and 27.

Oh, how's that article 11? Oh, yeah, I'm thinking section. Sorry. Give me the page number again, sir. 26 and 27. Bye. A little bit.

Going. I mean, you can really do either one because they're identical.

Yeah. All right. So I know, Nevin or Caroline, if you want to speak to this. Nevin, probably best for you, sir.

What we did is that it just makes it clear there were – Yeah, there were two lead persons that were confusing. So it says that the city commission shall maintain police protection services with a chief of police or lead person. and then it talks about who designates that lead person and it's designated by the city manager period and it was confusing to say or other lead person after that and there was never any discussion don't know for sure why it said designated by the city or city manager But Caroline and I don't recall any discussion other than that the city manager would designate the police chief and the fire chief, which is consistent with the rest of the charter that talks about that the city manager is the one who makes the appointments. And obviously, the city commissioners then have the three chartered officers that they fire directly.

All right. And so fire is the same. And then what section is that, ma'am?

Go back to sections two and three.

All right. Section two and three.

One, two, and three. All right. Right. So in sections two and three, this deals with the city clerk and the fact that we don't need to have this long list of ordinances and that now the city clerk can keep the boundaries, a list of the ordinances as the boundaries change. And just to slay a map as well. I mean, there's nothing wrong with having all of these original boundaries as it was done in the 1963 charter. But the point is that now it can be kept as a map in the city clerk's office. And we don't need to amend the charter to continue to have ordinances on it due to home rule. So that's section two. And then, so section two is the corporate boundaries. And then section three is for the ward boundaries, which obviously also can be changed by ordinance. And so it doesn't need to be added to the charter.

And does this cover the concern that Ms. Gelder noticed? remember I sent you and having a separate email, it does, where she says if the clerk is moving under the city manager, then it would not be referred to as a charter officer anymore. Do you remember that email? I do.

I do. Nevin, do you want to respond to that?

Yes. It was a good question. But the clerk, even whether or not the clerk is hired directly by the city commission or whether or not the clerk is hired by the city manager or appointed by the city manager, it is still very common to talk about clerk duties. And the point that she made is that there are clerk duties in the charter that But if this charter is approved, the clerk will no longer be hired directly by the city commission, but would be hired by the city manager or appointed by the city manager. Or the comptroller, of course, is the one that is actually hired directly by the city commission.

And all of those appropriate duties shifted over to the comptroller. As far as the treasurer's role, yes.

Correct. But there are some clerk duties, such as all the things that are spelled out in this charter are still clerk duties, but the clerk will be appointed by the city manager and not by the city commission.

To add on that, to respond directly to Doreen's question, is that the city clerk, it is a position whose duties are statutory, not necessarily the name city clerk, but the duties that the city clerk has. performs are required by statute. But the statutes don't require the city clerk to be a charter officer. The city clerk can be under the city manager's position.

Yep. Go ahead, Commissioner Hughes. I see your hand up, sir.

Yes, sir. Thank you. So the comptroller, the commission hires that person. So that would keep the city manager, comptroller and city attorney in there. And then you're saying like, what's the lady that does the agendas right now? Ms. Gelden. Doreen. Is that right? Doreen. Okay. So when she moved, a real life example, when she moved into the city manager's office and worked under you, is that how that would work? Yes, sir. Okay, and then, so we're now maybe Jan's hiring Doreen, you're the one that, or are you hiring her and she's just working for Jan? Does that change?

Yeah, so what the revisions would do is shift the clerk's duties alone over to the city manager's office, which again are the minutes, the notices, that kind of stuff, more administrative functions. All of the financial oversight and treasurer duties stay as a charter officer and it becomes comptroller rather than city clerk treasurer. And so, and that would be that person, that person reports directly to the commission and remains a charter officer like city attorney and city manager.

Okay. Now your office is probably maybe the busiest and most packed in city hall. Does a city manager's office have not physical space, but has space to make that change and it not disrupt the, Order of operations.

I believe so. I mean, we talked to Doreen. I talked to Doreen already multiple times every single day.

I mean, it's happening now with Brandy serving as interim. Yeah, so I don't believe it would be very disruptive, sir.

Okay. Yeah, yeah. Well, it's one and a half, but yeah, so. She's half treasurer, half clerk for admin, so. All right. Commissioner Granger just joined. So I don't know if you had a chance, Commissioner Granger, to look through the red line version that I circulated two days ago for for the changes we you know. we were kind of clarifying some language around the clerk um we updated the initial language where uh early on where it talked about abolishing and uh nevin and his team softened up that language a little bit and then um what was the other big page 32 i think right section 71. yeah let me look at that real quick section what why does it say section 32. all right let me just minimize this so i can more easily jump around i just shot right by it sorry about that all right commissioner granger this is um uh This is the adjusted language for section 32. Nevin spoke to it. It's kind of just moving it away from being locked into the charter and more established by the rules and procedure which are adopted by the commission as they so desire. So do you have any questions or concerns?

So it just kind of puts it back on whatever the body at the time decides the rules that they want to follow by, right?

That is correct.

Okay. Yeah, I'm fine with that.

All right. And then what was the final one?

Oh, go ahead, sir. Real quick. I didn't understand what, Brian, what that was. May be limited to establishing meeting times. So it's the same, like the mayor runs the meetings, right? Right. That hasn't changed.

I mean, y'all could update the rules of procedure potentially, I guess, to make the Ward 3 Commissioner always do it. I mean, that's a good question. Wait a minute. Hold on. Hold on.

So what's different about this than was the other day? Other than the mayor and still the city staff is setting the agenda. and we're just expanding out what the procedures are?

Nevin, I'll defer to you.

Caroline can speak as far as policy. whether it's in the charter that says that the mayor runs the meetings, but the rules of procedure that you have now, we simply took the major headings under the rules of procedures and put them here as what you may adopt. But the rules of procedures, we'll talk about setting the agenda, any notice of the agenda. It'll talk about how to run the meeting, rules of civility, All of that will be done by motion at a city commission meeting. Cool.

So I'll just say it because we kept saying all this process, this isn't about any individual person. It's about the position looking beyond. So the big thing is, I think the feedback was, is none of the... Commissioners wanted the mayor to have that much control over the agenda by him or herself. So this addresses that and puts that out of the charter back in the hands of the entire commission collaboratively. Is that a fair statement, Mr. Zimmerman? yes that's a fair statement i think we all agree on that true that that uh that y'all did y'all did i just i just i felt like we were kind of nibbling around that i just wanted to state it firmly and i can't see you commissioner lucas but i've been i got a text that you have your hand up i only see what y'all see on my shared screen right now so i apologize go ahead ma'am so my question i can't see her in reference to um

The duties and power of mayor where it says in time of public danger or emergency, the mayor may, with consent of the commission, take the command of police and maintain order and enforce the law. Is that further delineated in rules of procedure? I'm not advocating for taking it out. I just want to understand it. I understand.

You know, Caroline would love to talk about that. But it is kind of an archaic thing, but it is not anything new. It was in the old charter. But go ahead, Caroline.

Commissioner Lucas, are you reciting from a particular section?

Yeah, so we can go to it, ma'am. Say again.

Section 29, duties, powers of mayor, page 13.

Oh, yeah.

The last, second to the last sentence.

In time of public danger or emergency, the mayor may, with the consent of the commission, take the command of the police and maintain order and enforce the law. So that, yeah, that, and I wanted, Commissioner Hughes touched on this also when he mentioned, you know, who chairs the meeting. Will section 32 change that? No, it won't because section 29 says, establishes these duties for the mayor, chairing the meeting, and then the mayor also receives this ability to act in times of emergency. The other section, section 32, that has been now changed, just deals with the rules of procedure. And this commission has been doing the rules of procedure for as long as I'm aware. And so it's really just putting what this commission has been doing and then putting it into the charter and saying, yeah, you have to, before you could do rules of procedure with it being in the charter, then you have to do some rules of procedure. Now, what goes in the rules of procedure is flexible as it's written. Does that answer your question, Commissioner Lucas?

No, I just wanted to understand what would a time of public danger or emergency be? And I'm thinking if our police, I don't know, if the city's under attack, I'm kind of like, are we assuming that something happened to me?

Did I get taken out or something?

Yeah, I mean, unless it requires it to be there, strike that out, because the mayor's not trained to take out a police force. Unless you want to define emergency as an every leap year, maybe, you know? Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, I would imagine if something happened to me, there would be an emergency commission meeting to establish an acting city manager.

Yeah, either the assistant city manager or the deputy chief should be in charge, not the mayor.

It seems like we're under attack or something like that. The police chief's been taken out. The city manager's been taken out. Anyway.

Keep going. Designated survivor stuff. Go ahead, Nevin.

I'm just pointing out that is the original language. It was in the 1963 charter. And when I was county attorney, we had similar language in the statute that would allow the chairman of the county commission to assume powers if there was a state of emergency. It says with the consent of the city commission. So it's just, it would be a hurricane situation. It wasn't ever necessary. even under hurricane michael for that authority to be exercised it could be a mob situation uh but that's that is original language and the charter review committee i don't recall had much discussion about it because it didn't seem a reason is probably not going to ever come into play.

Would better verbiage be to take the role of city manager versus take command of the police and maintain order? That sounds super militia style.

I mean, you do have the appropriate badge, both federal and local, Alan.

Okay, if there's a consensus, and Caroline probably hasn't really focused on that, but we could look at how other charters have dealt with that issue. And Caroline, do you recall what other charters may have said? The issue meaning there's an emergency and there's some provision that allows the mayor to take over from the city manager position.

And I wasn't advocating that we take it out. I just wanted to understand how it might be used.

Well, and there may be, you know, with modern emergency management, it may be the emergency manager gains some of those, too. That is designated. And right now, and I don't know if it's by charter or ordinance, it's when we have a disaster declared, your emergency manager is the fire chief.

so and just real quick section 19 says and i'm not going to go there because it's very simple it's just section 19 commissioner not to serve a city manager no commissioner shall serve a city manager under this charter i don't i don't know if that means they can't run for it but i don't know if that's in conflict so i mean to the mayor's point you could just potentially take out that sentence And then you still have the powers and duties of the mayor shall be such as are conferred upon him or her by the city commission in pursuance of the provisions of this charter and no others.

Those are all good comments. Let us look at that. And then we won't change anything right now. But when we have our first hearing, we can just briefly talk about that. It shouldn't take long to chat about it. But good, good comments. Hopefully we never will find out exactly how we exercise that authority.

All right. Before we go to the wording of the ballot language, which I think is probably going to generate a little bit more discussion, is there anything else we need to touch on on the charter itself, Mr. Mayor, Commissioners? Or Caroline, anything else we need to touch gloves with them on? The wording of what?

The discussion about Section 71. One second, sir. 71, page is that on? Page 20? Just clarify and strengthen the language so that it's clear.

71?

Section 71 on page 20. I think I'm almost there.

Okay.

Oh, the elections.

Yes. The terms of the president elected hereby extended until the successors have been duly elected. So I know I handed out a little one pager at the workshop, but basically in instead of the spring of twenty seven. wards two and three in the mayor would go out to November of 28 or August and November of 28, respectively, to align with the presidential election. And then instead of the spring of 2029, wards one and four would go out until August and November of 2030 to align with the gubernatorial election. So are you saying that this language changed? from the last time they looked at it?

If it's in yellow, if it's in yellow, that means it's changed. And Caroline, do you want to walk us through how you worked on that?

Well, in our internal discussions, we began to focus on Section 71 and it may have clarified yeah it may have worked fine the way it was but really it needed to be just we needed to hone in and clarify it so i went back and looked at other muni codes and um made it much more detailed. The process is the same still, but in this version we now address what if there's a let's see, what if there's a tie vote well we have two the the point is to have two candidates moving on to the general election but what if there's a tie vote uh for the second place candidate um that wasn't in there before in this case then three candidates would go forward and there was an internal discussion about whether you know being consistent yeah and uh And then, let's see. Oh, and also, we did an address before, the way it was written before, what if a candidate is unopposed? Do they have to be on the ballot? And so this says no. If it's a person who, well, there's only one candidate that qualifies and no competition going on, then they don't need to be on the ballot at all. That probably saves money somehow. So...

You know what? That's actually I mean, I don't know if you all agree with that. I know for federal elections, even if nobody else qualifies against you, you still go on the November ballot and there's just a ride in line underneath you. I think with a lot of your local and state and I think for the state legislature, they do that as well. but for county offices and stuff typically if no one else qualifies against you then you then you're as soon as closing of uh qualifying you're you're in office so um i think it's different when you're talking about a larger legislative body those those are my two cents i understand the ability to write someone in there but i think it i think this is reasonable i don't know mr mayor commissioners do you have thoughts on that caroline i've got a question if if three people

are in the general election, then you've got to get 50 plus one. No. So 48.7 would have won last time. But if they're tied, number two is tied in the primary, can't we draw straws there to get two? Having two go to the general?

That's what I advocated for, Commissioner.

We discussed that also, and that's an option. That's one way to do it. So if you look at the last highlighted sentence, Commissioner Hughes, the candidate receiving the highest number of votes in each contest in the general election shall be declared to be elected to office. So in the really quite rare instance, if there were three candidates that went forward, and it is a rare, not impossible, but rare, then in that situation, you wouldn't have a majority because you'd had the second place people that had tied, all three of them would go forward. This is one way to do it. I did I did see this in the Tallahassee Muni Code. That's how they did it. So I borrowed it. But, you know, there's more than one way to do this. Right.

If we're trying to avoid having three people, so we have a winner. I would say that we leave that part off that we send only two. And having gone through a runoff, I like the idea of a winner at night. I mean, that night. But I still think if the goal is to get to 50 plus one, let's try to make that happen in the primary if there's three in a tie and bring two over. I mean, how do y'all feel about that, guys? Don't everybody speak at once.

I don't think there should be three in the general.

Just let me interrupt quickly. What Commissioner Hughes is indicating is rather than having drawing straws, so to speak, by lottery, if there's a tie in the general, go ahead and break the tie in the primary. so if there's a tie for a second you go ahead and you draw straws and then only two go forward to the general election yeah i think you said that backwards but um yeah i i'm in favor of of two candidates going to the the general no matter what yeah i am too however

I'm uncomfortable with drawing straws at the primary. And, I mean, if we exhausted it 2 times, and we still have a tie, we need to do something different. But I wouldn't want to have lost in the primary because I drew the wrong straw.

Yeah. Commissioner Lucas, can you expand on what you mean by. Exhausted it 2 times it wouldn't have been 2 times ma'am.

If there's a tie and we carry three to the general and we still have a tie at the end, that's what I mean. Oh, I see.

Yeah. So you'd be drawing straws twice. No, you wouldn't.

No. One of the candidates, even though they had a chance at the primary, would have drawn a straw to get out, you know, to choose who goes forward. If we do as it's written here and they go forward to the general and we still have a tie, we need to do something different. We don't have another election. So drawing straw at that point. I'm just thinking about now the candidate who had an equal chance to be elected and that was thwarted because of the drawing of the straw after the primary.

So in this, the way it's written in this case, in the highlighted language, there would not be a straw drawn in the primary.

Yes.

It's case of a tie between the candidates two and three. of second place candidates, then all three would go to the general election. And then if there were a tie, then you draw straws. In my mind, I look at that as kind of an end of the road. There's no more elections. We're done. We have to have a candidate. And this is when we have to do this dramatic decision so that we have a candidate. It's a rare instance. I don't even know when I've seen it ever actually happen. So in this instance, the potential for a straw to be drawn would only be in the general and not in the primary. But the alternative, which we did discuss internally, is to allow the straw to be drawn in the primary in order to make sure that only two candidates go forward And then that would mean that one candidate who tied would not get to go forward if there was, you know, the second place winners were tied or, you know, even a three three way tie. You know, as strange as that sounds, only two candidates would go forward and that would be decided by Strauss. That's the alternative option. uh process which does mean that then when the two candidates do go forward to the general you could have a tie again and draw straws again i mean all of these are just crazy scenarios i'm sure it's happened somewhere but i i don't know where it's it would be a rare instance so You know, it's up to you.

So think about it. In November, we can put somebody in the general election in the congressional race with 20%. Whoever gets the most votes, one person goes. So we're talking about two. I think that separates out in the primary. It would be very hard to have a tie, I think, in the primary.

Yeah. I agree.

Yeah.

think we're overthinking that one i also yeah so it it sounds like at least two of y'all are very firm that we only ever have two candidates in the general so commissioner lucas is this uh i guess is this a i don't want to say poison pills is a deal breaker for you i'll yield i mean it's a rare in in um instance I mean, I'm Googling to see if there has ever been a tie vote in the primary and general. Like, that would be really rare.

As a suggestion to keep the discussion moving along, we could prepare some language.

Uh-oh, we're losing you, Nevin. All right.

Don, did you lose me? Can you hear me now?

You're back now. Go ahead.

Okay, sorry. We could prepare some language, Caroline could, that would make sure that there's a tiebreaker in the primary, and then you can have that language and look at it, and then you can make your, you know, obviously there beside, do you want to go in, do you want to bring three to the final election, or do you want to have a tiebreaker at the primary if needed? and then we can talk about it again. Then you'd have language in front of you.

Yeah, wasn't there a runoff following the primary at one point a decade or so ago?

I remember there was a school board race out of like 50 something thousand votes that was decided by two votes. I don't remember one in Bay County in the last 10 or 15 years where there was an actual tie. There's been some close ones, but not an actual time, ma'am.

Okay. Thank you.

All right. So now we switch over to, I think, that which is going to generate a lot more discussion. And so Nevin and his team have drafted what this would look like if we simply put it on the ballot in one question. I know at least a couple of y'all think we should split it up, but they just wanted to demonstrate that. Wow, that is really blown up big. I apologize. um oh is this what you sent me oh yeah yeah all right so um if if uh if we did only do one question as a reminder from uh miss ward's uh counsel to us uh it has to be 75 words or less and nevin and his team uh work their magic and this is exactly 75 words so um Again, understand that at least one or two of you would like to split it up into two or three different questions, but it can be done. So, Mr. Mayor, commissioners, over to y'all. Oh, I did want to just double check because this was originally in here as electors of Bay County, but y'all did. all concur that the three charter positions should live in the city and not the county, that Bay County wasn't narrow enough. So we tweaked that as well. You'll see that's the third point.

So I'm glad that it's laid out like this because there's a lot of really easy yeses to vote on here. And I would recommend that we take all the easy yeses, eliminating sections, superseded, revised, you know, complying with state and federal anti-discrimination, put all that up top and move it down. I think the mayor being at one, I think set up this way, we can get a yes. The city's going to have to do a really good job of promoting this because all the air is going to get sucked up by the property tax conversation. And we got to make sure that people know what this is really about. And how would we do that? But I'm in favor of that right there. Maybe tweak a word or two, but I like that idea.

I don't think any of these items are controversial. They're normal things from other cities. So if we identify them as, hey, everybody, these are controversial items. That makes them controversial.

Not necessarily. I'm not saying it that way. I'm just saying right now, nobody that I've talked to has a problem with two to four years. That's easy.

Aligning.

Sometimes we can go to the mayor and they will complain that it's wrong color, wrong color. That's all I'm trying to do is show the real, you know, the yeses. I agree with you. They're not controversial.

Yeah. And so I think if you say, oh, these are the ones. And so I think people, the messaging that I would put in the public is these are just updating. This is nothing, nothing. We have not invented anything new. These are standard things.

Yeah. Industry standards, other cities have done them. The second one, aligning with state and federal, increases turnout and saves the city money. Other cities have done it in Bay County as well. Are we the last city to move to state and federal? No, the beach has already done it. Lynnhaven... Was it Calloway or Lynn Haven?

Lynn Haven. I'm sorry. Calloway, the beach, and I think that's it.

Yeah. And then Lynn Haven, I think, is in the process of doing it. I can't speak to Springfield or Parker. Okay. And then Pensacola, of course, did a few years ago. And then last decade, Tallahassee did it. And I want to say Destin already is as well. Okay. So we kind of looked at cities in the panhandle. All right.

So I don't think this is a, no, that's not how I want to say this. Mayor, to your point, we are not making a big issue. It just takes somebody to make it. And one, no, I can't do this. That's the chance we take. Now, how big of a chance that is, I don't know. But what I don't see here, the change is creating the comptroller position.

When we, uh, well, number 4. When it says at the end of that moving city clerk duties to city manager. That's indicate the change and then and then it indicates that that is no longer going to be where it was. It's now going to be. Under city manager, and then, um. The change for comptroller is a name change.

It's actually... From treasurer to comptroller.

Well, the ordinance is called a treasurer. In the charter, it calls it a collector. A very kind of archaic term.

So, you know... Janice is right. It wasn't substantial.

We just, you know, at the very last one, in order to get 75 words as our max, we have other administrative revisions per ordinance 3308. And that ordinance and a copy of what the charter will look like will be there. if anybody wants to see that. But the duties of the treasurer stay the way they are. They don't change. It's just a name change. So when working in this, which was kind of difficult to get it down to 75 words, we made the decision to include that as an administrative revision, a name change.

Okay. Was this the only option?

yeah hang on nevin go ahead commissioner lucas is this the only option or did you look at breaking it up into other questions into more than one question well that hadn't been i hadn't been instructed to do that um you know before this was what i understood was the desire of both i think the soe prefers the one it's simpler i think The charter review advisory board preferred the 1, and I hadn't really. I don't remember from the workshop if it had been discussed that we break it up or that there was a desire.

She said the requirement was was 75 words. Give me 1 or more questions. It was just had to be in 75 words.

Yeah. That might have been a one-off conversation I had with her, but I know, obviously, it is simple in this. But, I mean, we can – so what – if y'all wanted to split it into two, what would – like, what are your general thoughts on what would be split apart?

No, I wasn't asking. I was just asking if there were other – Oh, okay.

Here is the dilemma of splitting it into two is that what if one – one question passes and the other question doesn't. So you have to make sure that that portion of the charter still works with whatever wasn't approved. So that's just a practical issue because if one portion of the changes got approved and the others didn't, you just have to be very careful. It's obviously easier on the drafter to do one, and that's what the Charter Review Committee recommended. But you could do more, but then you just have to think through, okay, well, if it were three questions and only one passed, well, then how does that work with everything else that's still remaining? That's all.

You know, ballots will never have enough words to explain every candidate, every issue. So 75 to me is a lot of words, considering you only get like four or five when you vote for somebody. And there's a personal responsibility you have when you vote for something to research it. And I don't think breaking it up, even if you had 75 awards per bullet point, it will never be enough to explain the complexities of the charter, in my personal opinion. So I think the wording is fine if you want to suggest a few suggestions. But I think breaking it up into individual ones is a nightmare. It would be confusing to people. And we just have to promote, here's the changes. We all agree on them. These are normal and industry standard.

Yeah. And I'll just state as soon as I mean, as soon as the primary is over, we kind of get through Labor Day. I mean, I think it behooves the city and in collaboration and coordination with with the elected body to to inform and educate the public in advance of the November election. So. Commissioner Hughes, did I scroll down enough, sir? I think you wanted to see the rest of the ordinance. Yeah, this is just the ordinance that you guys would adopt. And then, of course, this section right here is simply the question that would go to the SOE right here. Commissioner Granger, thoughts, sir? You've been quiet.

Yeah, I like it. I like the way it's written. I don't see any reason to break it up.

If I can interject, I think we might want to consider just stating, and we'd have to take something out, that the certain duties of the anyone.

Nevin, we're losing you. I'm sorry.

It's not clerk.

Yeah. Nevin, I'm sorry. We lost you. Try again, sir. Hold your phone up high.

My only point was that we might want to consider just stating that the comptroller position, I forget the name that it took its place of. It wasn't clerk, but it was collector. Collector. Collector. And I know that would take four or five words and would have to take out four or five words. But we'll think about that. I think that Commissioner Lucas had a good point there.

Let me ask this. Is this part of the 75? No. It's not? It starts at the word shall. So can't you just say shall the city, since you just said city of Panama City above it, that might save you two or three words right there. Just a thought.

We'll work on it more. That's kind of probably what we'll start doing.

And to be honest, there's not a single the in there. The eliminating sections superseded by law. I would think that goes without being said. I mean, you already do, like, you're just removing things that are already law that we can't do.

It's a big change.

Yeah, if it's a project. All right, Mr. Mayor, commissioners, any other questions or comments? Of course, y'all can give additional comments, you know, on July 14th for the first reading to tee it up for the second reading on July 20th. We just wanted to make sure that it was as buttoned up as possible going into the formal action part of this. All right. Commissioner Lucas, I don't see you on my screen for some reason. Are you good, ma'am?

Yes.

All right. Boom. Seven minutes to spare. Everyone have a good evening. Unless there's anything else, Mr. Mayor, Commissioners?

No, just wish each of you a very safe and happy holiday weekend.

Thank you so much. Likewise.

You too. Bye.

Bye.