Mayor’s vote among suggested charter changes

LEAGUE CITY — League City’s city council already has decided to move municipal elections to November but more changes could be on the way.

At a meeting Tuesday night, League City’s charter review committee proposed changes to the length of mayor and council terms, the frequency of elections, eliminating term limits and giving the mayor the right to vote like any other council member.

One of the more fundamental changes would be to give the mayor the right to vote. After the change of government, the role of mayor became almost ceremonial.

Committee member Pat Hallisey said, currently, the mayor runs meetings, signs contracts and can represent the city, but voting would make him or her more accountable to city residents.

Along with adding a section to the charter with a list of what the mayor can and can’t do, the committee also recommended reducing the number of council members to six, ensuring there would be an odd number of votes so as to avoid a tie.

Councilman Dennis OKeeffe said he felt the mayor already had enough to do representing the city and would not be able to fulfill his duties as well as read up on the issues before a council meeting. Voters could judge the mayor by how well the city is doing, he said.

But committee member Chuck DiFalco said giving the mayor a vote would give residents a record of the mayor.

“He is the head of our government, and I think he should be more accountable to the people by telling us — by being forced to tell us — where he stands,” he said.

The committee also recommended lengthening the terms council members serve to four years instead of the current three. Along with that, elections would change from every year to every two years.

That would give council members more time to work and be accountable to the public and minimize the frequency of elections, committee members said.

One recommendation that split the charter review committee was term limits. The city charter states that a person can serve in an elected office for only three consecutive terms.

The committee recommended eliminating that and having no term limits for council members and the mayor.

While the issue is one that provoked debate both among the committee and the council members, it is not something likely to come up often, committee member Neil Baron said.

He said according to the committee’s research, only one person had been pushed out of office because of term limits.

DiFalco said the philosophical reason for removing the limits was that the decision of who stays in office and who goes should be left up to voters.

The committee’s recommendations are now in the city council’s hands. It will be up the council to debate them and place them on the ballot if they want residents to decide which changes should be made to the city charter, Peggy Zahler, the committee chairwoman, said.

The committee’s recommendations were, Hallisey said, attempts to “reconnect government to a disenfranchised citizenry.”