Published: October 18, 2009 11:30 pm      

Proposed amendments questioned

Early voting begins Monday on the state’s 11 proposed amendments to the Texas Constitution, the city’s $3.5 million bond issue to renovate and expand the Huntsville Public Library, the exchange of parkland and on the proposed 10 amendments to the City Charter.

The city and Walker County will hold a joint election Nov. 3.

Early voting in person will be held Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Oct. 30 at the county annex, 1301 Sam Houston Avenue.

Two of the city’s proposed amendments — 1 and 9 — are questionable, while a third — amendment 3 — is seen as one that is needed.

Amendment 1 would provide that the regular city general elections shall be moved from the uniform election date in May to the uniform election date in November to be effective Jan. 1, 2010.

Amendment 3 would provide that no ordinance shall be finally passed until it has been considered and favorably acted on by the council at two separate council meetings and providing for exceptions to the requirement of two separate readings.

Amendment 9 would add a new section that provides for a limitation of the Issuance of new debt that exceeds .002 (two-tenths of one percent) of the net taxable value as certified by the Walker County Appraisal District applicable to the city tax roll for the fiscal year in which the funds are approved (for reference purposes if 2009 net taxable value was used the dollar amount would be is approximately $2.2 million).

The City Council approved appointments to the Charter Review Committee at its July 21 meeting and members held their first meeting July 28 and they had less than a month to review the City Charter and come up with recommendations before the end of August so the council could approve them before a Sept. 2 state deadline.

The committee first met on a Saturday and then at least twice a week after that.

The Charter Review Committee voted against proposing an amendment to move the city’s election day from May to November, but did favor the other two.

The City Council approved putting an amendment on the balllot to move the election from May to November.

Dennis Reed, who chaired the Charter Review Committee, said the group looked at different concerns over moving the election from May to November.

“Moving the election to the fall would make it more slanted toward Republican or Democrat,” he said. “We were trying to keep that green neutral issue because our council had not made that affiliation before and we were trying to keep it that way.”

Moving it to the fall could make City Council members select a party affiliation since county and state officials run either as Democrat, Republican or Independent and there is straight-party voting.

The fear is that the city elections could become lost with county and state elections, although there is the motive that holding city elections in November would bring out more voters.

“The one thing that swayed me more than anything else was the budget issues,” Reed said. “A budget preparation, a budget understanding. Presently, if the council is brought in in May, then they get a pretty good dosage of what is going to be approved on the budget as far as budget hearings, budget workshops.

“If you’re not elected until November, you basically take what the previous council has decided and you just have to go with it. I think that understanding process from step 1 through the final approval is very important for a new member of council.

“I think that was probably the most important thing for me.”

Reed said the vote not to recommend changing the election date was not unanimous, but close to unanimous.

In addition, moving the election to November would allow the city to enter a joint election with the county since county or state amendment elections are held.

Currently, the city holds joint elections in May with the Huntsville school district and Walker County Hospital District.

But if candidates were unopposed in the school or hospital district elections, those entities can cancel their elections.

Also, several City Council members would have their terms extended by six months because no action can shorten the length of an incumbent.

Those council members would holdover to November, allowing them to control the 2010-11 fiscal budget of the city.

Approving the amendment would allow the current council members-at-large to have their current two-year terms extended six months until November 2010 and the current mayor and council members from all wards will have their current terms extended six months until November 2011.

If Amendment 9 passes, any city project exceeding $2.2 million would be brought before Huntsville voters to let them decide if the project is worthwhile instead of the City Council doing its job and voting on the issue and not hindering the start of any project.

A vote could only be held on a uniform election date in May or November.

If approved, the amendment would lessen the flexibility of the local government to be responsive to the needs of the people and halt any meaningful project.

Council members were elected by the people to make those decisions and represent them and where they can look closely at the information to make a decision.

Reed said the committee approved recommending Amendment 9 “because of our time constraints. If the time was available for us to spend more time thinking it through the entire process we might not have done it.”

“The process was one of those things where we looked at the smaller picture, I am afraidd, and not looked at everything that might be incorporated with it.

“There were several examples brought out to me that the city would have lost out on had it been for this kind of action if it is approved such as infrastructure repairs they are working on.

“If it goes over $2 million, they have to go to a vote. That is going to delay that process for repair for a long time because it has to go to a vote. I am just not sure that maybe we were a little hasty on our decision with that.”

Reed said the committee looked at using 2.25 percent of the total taxable amount of property in the city to determine the amount that would go before voters.

“That way it is not set in a particular number,” he said. “It’s set at a percentage of the whole volume. Five years down the road, we said, as the tax base increases that number would increase because it’s based on a percentage of the entire tax base.”

Reed said the percentage was changed to a number that will not last the length of time.

He said $2 million 20 years ago might have been a lot, but $2 million 20 years from now will not be much of anything.

Reed said taking this step could hinder progress.

“We were asked to look at this,” he said. “We came up with a pretty good plan on it, but in hindsight it might have been hasty in our decision to even approve this.

“I think the recommendations that the Charter Review Committee proposed are better than what is going to be on the ballot, but I think in hindsight we might have been hasty in our decision again because we were just trying to get through this information as quickly as possible and move on.”

Reed said that “unfortunately, yes, it was hurried. For whatever reason, we just weren’t given a lot of time to work on it, but we did the best we could based on the time constraints that we had.

“I think we did a fairly good job. Our committee got along well. We didn’t always agree, but at the end I don’t think they were any hard feelings by it.”

Reed said the committee favored the two readings on an ordinance before the council could pass it based on the one reading required to change the name of Huntsville Municipal Airport to Bruce Brothers/Huntsville Airport.

“Those kinds of examples of something happening without any kind of citizen input,” he said.