Freda Powell, a former mayoral candidate who previously served on Amarillo City Council, was elected as the chair of the Charter Review Committee during their first meeting on Thursday evening.

Gary Pitner, a former director of the Panhandle Regional Planning Commission, was elected as the committee’s vice chair. Both nominations were made by committee member Sandra McCartt, who was placed on the committee by City Councilman Josh Craft. Councilman Les Simpson placed both Powell and Pitner on the committee. (Simpson, along with Councilman Tom Scherlen, are serving as non-voting members of the committee.)

While Powell was elected as the chair, the meeting was primarily led by Baker Tilly representative Dennis Hawkins. Baker Tilly was hired by the city as a consultant for the charter review and is also working with the city on the ongoing city manager search.

The meeting was largely concerned with going over proposals put forward by Amarillo City Council in early May, as well as a review of the overall charter amendment process.

Specifically, items discussed were staggering terms of council members, longer terms for council members, expanding the lengths of council terms while keeping two-year terms for the mayor, expanding the number of council members to seven, and moving the power to appoint the city attorney from the City Manager to the City Council.

On the topic of expanding the size of the council, there was some concern that expanding the size of the council may require moving to single member districts. It was noted that the pre-clearance requirement for such a change under the Voting Rights Act is no longer in effect, though some other provisions remain in place.

Some alternatives, including council member residency districts and cumulative voting, were also mentioned. Interim City Manager Floyd Hartman noted a more full presentation on the subject would be given at the next meeting.

The topic of increasing the pay of the councilmemers (currently $10 per meeting) was brought up by committee members Kim Benson and Sandra McCartt. Committee member Michael Haning noted that he personally supported increasing the pay, but noted it would be “a political hand grenade.”

The committee will continue to meet weekly at Amarillo City Hall on Thursdays at 5:30 pm, with their final meeting scheduled for June 27th. Their recommendations will be brought to Amarillo City Council on July 9th. Any potential changes will need to be placed on the November ballot for voter approval.

One other area of discussion that took up significant discussion were changes to bring the charter in line with state law. Specifically, state laws regarding platting requirements, eminent domain, and election laws were discussed. Several committee members expressed a desire to look into these changes, though councilmen Simpson and Scherlen noted that cleaning up the charter was not a priority. It was noted that the areas where the charter did not align with state law, state law controls despite any affected areas.

Because of this, along with an expressed desire to minimize the number of items placed on the ballot, housekeeping amendments are not seen as a priority by the council. Despite not prioritizing these items, Councilman Scherlen encouraged the committee to research these housekeeping items so that the research may be available to future review committees.

Councilman Simpson expressed a desire for the committee to not feel like any topics are off-limits. “So many times we get scared to discuss things,” said Simpson. “That's the exact opposite of what we should do.”

A livestream of the meeting was hosted on the city's YouTube channel, though the livestream did not begin until about 20 minutes after the meeting began.