The Amarillo Charter Review committee ruled out moving city elections to November and expressed hesitation towards reducing recall requirements during their most recent meeting.

The meeting opened with a discussion about the specifics of the four-year staggered terms and expanded council size proposed during their previous meetings.

The committee discussed several options, including keeping all seats at large and moving to single-member districts. While opposition was expressed towards single-member districts, the committee did express a desire to improve representation from the Northeast portions of town. The committee eventually settled on a hybrid system, where the city will be split into some number of districts. Of the new 7 member council, three or four of the seats will require that the member live in a particular district, though the entire city will still get to vote for who gets elected to that seat. City staff has been instructed to produce potential maps as to what these districts could look like to present at the next charter review committee meeting.

The committee also discussed the logistics of moving to staggered terms. If this option does succeed, when the next city election in May 2025 is held, all six council seats plus the mayor will be up for election. Three of the council members elected in 2025 will serve two-year terms. Then, the candidates elected to those seats in 2027 will serve for four-year full terms, with the next election for those seats after 2027 being in 2031. The other three council members plus the mayor will serve for full four-year terms, with the next election for those seats being in 2029.

The four-year staggered terms proposal is similar to a proposal rejected by voters in 2020, with one key difference. In 2020, the method to implement staggering was set to be “provided by ordinance,” though the specifics of how that would be achieved were not made clear at the time. The new version of the proposal would include specifics laid out in the amendment regarding which places would be up for two-year terms and which would be up for four-year terms in the next election.

Though a consensus was reached on residency requirements for an expanded council and the method of staggering terms, other items received less support.

The option of moving elections to November was unanimously ruled out by the committee, with some members expressing a desire to keep the city elections on the same ballot as other local non-partisan elections, despite the potential for higher turnout in November.

There was also some hesitancy felt towards reducing recall requirements. Currently, in order to recall a member of Amarillo City Council, a petitioner must collect signatures from 30% of registered voters in the city within 30 days. Of those who sign, at least one-fifth must certify that they voted for the person they are seeking to recall. Critics have pointed out that, given low turnout in city elections, this can sometimes make recalling a member of the council mathematically impossible.

The committee did reach a consensus on removing the requirement that one-fifth of signatories certify that they voted for the official they are seeking to recall. However, reducing the number of required signatures experienced some resistance while and expanding the amount of time allowed to collect signatures met even more resistance. Further, a majority of the committee expressed that they felt changing the recall requirements was not a priority.

The discussion of delaying the topic of reducing recall requirements was started by City Attorney Brian McWilliams. “Some things should be voted on and actually enacted, and then the next time we look at the charter, we do the next thing.”

Committeewoman Sandra McCartt, the only member of the committee present who felt that reducing the recall requirements was a priority, pushed back, noting the optics of asking for longer terms but not changing the recall provision. “Elect us for longer and you can’t throw us out,” she joked.

Ultimately, the discussion on the recall requirements was tabled to the next committee meeting.

The committee also polled its members on making the City Attorney appointed by the council instead of the City Manager. A majority of members present expressed support, though committee chair Freda Powell, vice chair Gary Pitner, and committee member Donna Ward expressed opposition. The committee chose to wait until their next meeting to fully discuss that topic.

Other items set to be discussed at the committee’s next meeting include term limits and setting a policy for a regular charter review process.

The committee will hold its second-to-last meeting on Thursday, June 20th at 5:30 pm on the third floor of Amarillo City Hall. The city has set up an informational webpage on its website about the review process that can be accessed at this link.