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City Council Separates Mayoral Power Question in Charter Review

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BRADENTON – The Bradenton City Council voted 5-0 in a special meeting Tuesday to separate the charter review question as to whether the mayor should have oversight of the city's police department. Three items had been drafted as part of what would have been a single charter review referendum on this year's ballot. Separating the questions could have a number of political implications.

Bradenton’s 117-year-old charter, which remains largely unchanged since the city's establishment in 1903, can only be amended by voter referendum. Discussions of putting proposed modifications on the November ballot began last year. Several council members have expressed frustration with the 19-page document, which has been called outdated, antiquated, and flawed.

For the past 41 years, Bradenton has had only two mayors: Bill Evers, who served from 1980-2000, and incumbent, Wayne Poston, who defeated Evers and is currently running for a 6th term. Council members have often complained that the mayor's role as police commissioner and the police chief's boss gives the office unintended power that helps ensure such long incumbencies.

The process to review the charter for the purpose of better defining mayoral power has been driven by three council members: Harold Byrd, Bill Sanders, and Patrick Roff. Byrd, an attorney who's served on the council for 20 years in two different tenures and is currently running for mayor, has opined that he doesn't believe the city's status quo practices in regard to the mayor's role are legally defensible because they're not expressed.

Councilman Roff, who's currently serving his fourth term on the council, expressed the position that he doesn't believe those powers currently exist in the charter because of the council's control over the budget. Roff called it a "faulty document that doesn't work in 2020." Roff said that because he didn't believe the status quo is supported by the charter, he didn't feel there could be a "removal" of power that didn't exist. "There's a clarification needed," Roff said.

Attorney Scott Rudacille responded by pointing to one important line in the original charter, which reads, "The mayor should be elected to a term of four years and it should be his duty to see that all ordinances of the city are faithfully executed." Rudacille said that most of the President of the United States' powers are derived from a similarly-worded sentence, and because the state limits referendums to a 15-word max title and a 75-word max summary, it would be difficult and even legally dangerous not to state it that way.

"We have to squeeze a whole bunch of ideas into 75 words," said Rudacille, explaining that if the word "remove" wasn't used, it might not survive legal challenges.

The charter says that the police chief will be appointed by the mayor and confirmed by the council, which shall also set the salary. That hasn't been done in practice, as both of those past two mayors adopted the title police commissioner and no confirmation hearings have been held. It also says that "the police chief shall have control of the police force, subject to the commands of the mayor."

Councilman Bill Sanders said that he felt that the wording was clear that the mayor had control and oversight, which was at the heart of both his and Councilman Byrd's arguments.

Councilman Gene Brown asked how long the current practice has been in place. Councilman Gene Gallo, whose tenure as a fireman, fire chief, and councilman stretches over 60 years, said that it is the way it's been done during his time with the city.

Gallo expressed the view that council members were elected to create policy, not to supervise department heads. Roff countered that all other departments had a department head that ran the department without being micromanaged and it was not the intent of the council to manage the police department any differently, especially given that it's the most expensive department in the city budget.

There have been complaints, particularly from the city's African American community, of unfair treatment from the police department, especially at meetings, where the three-minute limit on public comment has often been enforced unevenly. Many members of the community believe the mayor has a conflict of interest as the police commissioner in situations where citizens disagree with his position and have called for a police review board in which complaints could be evaluated during public comment.

A recent meeting in which a citizen speaking against removing power from the mayor was allowed to go well past the three-minute limit, while an African American citizen (Ward 5 city council candidate Keenan Wooten) who followed and asked if he too could have extra time was denied. Previously, the former head of the county's NAACP chapter had been arrested at a meeting when police in attendance attempted to remove him from the podium once the time limit was up.

Separating the two uncontroversial (clean up) issues will allow them to go forward more easily. It will also frame the third item differently in that, were the mayor to veto a 3-2 vote, sending it back to the council where it would need a 4-1 supermajority to pass and make it onto the ballot, it would become much more political. Poston would seem to have a clear conflict of interest in vetoing an item that could weaken his office if reelected.

Last year, the city council explored creating a charter review board that Roff favored, but it was voted down. The three separate questions will now come back for two public hearings and a vote. If passed, they will appear as ballot referendum's on this fall's ballot.

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