By Chris Moore

chris.moore@panews.com

 

NEDERLAND — The City Council voted this week to add three amendments to the city’s charter to the May 4 ballot.

If approved, the charter would require councilmembers to have lived for one year in the ward they seek to represent. The City Council is composed of four council members and a mayor.

City Manager Chris Duque said as of now, it was an unwritten rule that councilmembers needed to represent their respective wards, but the seats were always voted on in an at-large election.

“The charter amendment will specify that to represent that ward, you must live in that ward for one year before running for that office,” Duque said.

The city manager said the old language has not been an issue in the past and all of the city councilmembers lived in the wards they were elected to represent for the 10 years he has worked there.

Duque also said all of the current council members live in their respective wards.

“It’s always been a handshake agreement, a gentleman’s agreement to respect that approach,” he said. “This would formalize it with the election.”

The second change to the charter regards section 3.07, which involves filling vacancies in the council.

In 2015, the city moved to three-year terms from two-year terms for councilmembers. The state legislature passed a law stating the process a council could go through in the event of a vacancy in the city’s charter permitted.

“What we’re doing is going back and putting that language in there to follow state law in regards to filling a vacancy,” Duque said.

Don Albanese resigned from his seat on the council when filed to run for mayor. Duque said if the city still had two-year terms, the council would have appointed someone to fill the vacancy, like the council did in 2008.

“Because we went from two-year terms to three, we cannot do that, because the charter doesn’t have that language,” Duque said. “That’s why were are carrying the vacancy until May.”

The law states if the unexpired term is 12 months or less, the majority of the council can appoint someone to fill the term. If the vacancy will last longer than 12 months, the city must have an election.

The final amendment to go on the ballot refers to section 17.04, which deals with written notice of injury or damage.

Duque said the only change to the section is the addition of “property damage.”

The charter has steps one must take to file a claim against the city for personal injury.

“It’s not creating any additional liability,” Duque said. “It just creates a procedure. We don’t just get personal claims, we get property claims as well.”