The Amarillo City Charter Review committee appears to have reached a consensus on two changes to the charter they will likely recommend to Amarillo City Council.

One of these changes would see the size of the council expanded to add two new seats. Currently, the council consists of four councilmembers and a mayor, who is a voting member of the council.

One issue that has been noted with the city’s five-member council is the difficulty in establishing subcommittees. Currently, any discussions between three or moremembers represents a quorum, implicating parts of the Texas Open Meetings Act. With a seven-member council, four members would be needed for a quorum. This would allow for informal subcommittees of up to three to discuss city business without implications relating to the Texas Open Meetings Act.

There was some initial hesitation towards expanding the council, as some feared it would lead to implications of the Voting Rights Act forcing the city to adopt single-member districts. While a majority of the members of the current Amarillo City Council expressed support for at least placing single-member districts on the ballot while campaigning last year, support for the proposal among the council has since waned. Similarly, support for single-member districts is scant on the review committee. However, consultants from Baker Tilly hired to assist with the charter review assuaged concerns by noting that the legal risk of forcing single member districts by expanding the council would be relatively low.

The other proposed change would increase the term of office for council members to four years while also staggering those terms.

A virtually identical item was narrowly rejected by city voters in 2020. Controversy surrounded the item at that election, especially regarding perceived flip-flopping by then-mayor Ginger Nelson on the issue.

A similar proposal pushed by Mayor Cole Stanley last month would see the terms for all members of the council other than the mayor expanded to four years while keeping the mayor at four years. However, members of the review committee expressed opposition to the idea, as they expressed opposition to treating the position of mayor differently.

It was stressed that should longer terms be approved, the longer terms would not go into effect until after the next city election, scheduled for next May. At that point, a portion of the council elected at that point would serve for two years while the rest elected in May would serve full four-year terms. After that point, each election would see only a portion of the council up for election, with all terms then being for four years.

The city secretary did note that if the terms are made longer, vacancies on the council could no longer be filled by appointment but would instead have to go to special elections.

While a general consensus was reached on these topics, neither have officially been recommended to the council yet. Additionally, any recommendations would still have to go through Amarillo City Council then receive approval by voters at the ballot box.

Other topics expected to be discussed at upcoming meetings include reducing the threshold for initiating a recall of a city council member and having the city attorney appointed by the council rather than the city manager.

The next meeting of the charter review committee is set to be held on Thursday, June 13th, at 5:30 pm on the third floor of Amarillo City Hall.