REPORT TO COUNCIL
SUBJECT
Title
Update to Council on Charter Review Committee Progress with its Assigned “Charter Project” Proposed Plan for Charter Reorganization, and Proposed Schedule for City Council Consideration and Action
Report
BACKGROUND
The idea for a comprehensive review and update of the City Charter (now commonly referred to as the “Charter Project”) was incorporated into the Governance and Ethics Committee Work Plan in early 2025. An outline for the project was first formally presented to the Governance and Ethics Committee on May 1, 2025. Senior City staff were supportive of the project based on their own assessment, and feedback from the different departments responsible for implementing its terms, that a number of Charter provisions were ambiguous, out of date, not aligned with current City operations or best practices, and/or not aligned with current laws. With support from the Committee, the project concept was presented to the full City Council on July 15, 2025. Recognizing the potential benefits of the project, the Council directed staff to take the initial steps to form a Charter Review Committee for purposes of implementing the “Charter Project” (the Charter Project CRC). Council direction included terms for the CRC’s composition, selection process and purposes. Staff advertised the availability of CRC positions and, with the City Clerk, implemented the CRC lottery selection and appointment process. On September 16, 2025, the City Council appointed the CRC members and formally established the CRC by adoption of the CRC Bylaws.
Section 2 of the City Council adopted Bylaws for the Charter Project CRC describes its purpose as follows:
“The purpose of the CRC is to work with City staff, with input from the community, to facilitate the implementation of the “Charter Project.” The Charter Project involves a process for comprehensive review of the City Charter to identify provisions in the Charter that should be corrected, clarified or modified for the Charter to be fully consistent with applicable state law, aligned with current best practices for City operations and, in general, easier to understand and apply. At the end of the process, the objective of the Charter Project is to produce a draft comprehensive Charter Amendment for presentation to the City Council and, if the City Council so directs, possibly the voters at the November 2026 Election.”
Section 3 of the Bylaws sets forth a list of the CRC’s duties. Section 3.4 describes the CRC’s ultimate duty as follows:
“Make a Recommendation to the City Council regarding a Comprehensive Amendment of the City Charter. To implement the Charter Project City staff will be preparing draft revisions to the City Charter for consideration and input by CRC Subcommittees and/or the CRC itself. At the end of the process, the CRC will be expected to make a recommendation to the City Council on one or more proposed amendments to the City Charter. The proposed “top to bottom” review process is intended to be driven by practical and legal considerations, with the prime objective being to bring the Charter up to current “best practices” for City operations. It is not intended to implement any major restructuring of City operations or to change the City’s election process. In the end, it will be up to the Charter Review Committee to recommend, and the City Council to decide which, if any, of the proposed changes will be presented to the voters as part a comprehensive update to the City Charter. In order to coordinate with the City Council’s summer meeting schedule, and to meet the timing requirements for submittals of measures to voters at the November 2026 election, the CRC shall endeavor to finalize and present its recommendation(s) to the City Council by no later than June 29, 2026.”
This report is intended to update the City Council on the Charter Project CRC’s progress to date towards implementing the Charter Project.
DISCUSSION
CRC Meetings and Activities.
Since October, the Charter Project CRC has met six (6) times. Meetings were held in 2025 on October 1st, October 22nd and November 19th and in 2026 on January 21st, February 18th and March 18th. Early meetings focused on training and work plan development. Since then, significant actions taken to date by the CRC include:
• Formation of six (6) Ad Hoc Subcommittees to serve as working groups for their assigned sections. The six Groups’ assigned work areas are as follows: (1) Powers and Structure of City Government: Rules/Process for Action; (2) City Council: Elections, Powers and Conduct of Meetings; (3) Senior Officials: Duties and Qualifications; (4) Boards and Commissions: Composition, Powers and Duties; (5) Civil Service: General Rules for Classified and Unclassified Employees; Commission Composition and Duties; and (6) Fiscal Administration and Procurement.
• Consideration and approval (in concept) of proposed changes to Article XI, Civil Service (setting forth the City’s basic structure and rules of classified and unclassified positions), and Sections 1010 and 1011 (setting forth the terms for the Civil Service composition and powers and duties). Early action on these provisions was necessary in order to allow for potentially impacted labor groups to be consulted and provide input on the proposed changes. Note: Staff recently commenced the process for solicitation of input from labor groups.
• Consideration and approval in concept of working definitions of the different “levels” of changes to the Charter. The idea here was to categorize proposed changes into levels so that when the total package is presented to the City Council, the Council will have a basis to evaluate which of the proposed changes ought to be included in the comprehensive Charter amendment submittal to the voters (generally, Levels One and Two), which changes might be so significant or implicate politically sensitive areas that such changes might be considered for presentation to the voters as one or more separate ballot measures (generally, Level Three), and which areas discussed were so significant, complex or sensitive that they were beyond the scope of the Charter Project CRC, but might warrant future study or consideration.(Level Four)
(See current draft of proposed Levels attached hereto as Attachment 1)
• Consideration and approval (in concept) of plan for an overall reorganization of the City Charter. As currently proposed, this overall reorganization would include a number of elements: (1) Consolidation of Articles I through V; (2) shifting of certain Sections into more logical arrangements by subject matter; (3) retitling of Articles and Sections with more descriptive language; (4) breaking up longer Sections into titled Subsections; (5) deleting headings and numbering left over from previously deleted Sections; (6) re-numbering all Articles and Sections with a more modern, intuitive numbering system; and (7) creation of a comprehensive matrix to be attached at the end of the Charter showing the history of changes to each Section, references to previous Section numbers, and references to City Code Sections that are implementing of the Charter. Note: the pros and cons of this approach are discussed in more detail, below.
Ad Hoc Subcommittee Meetings and Activities.
As of the date of publication of the agenda including this item, the following Ad Hoc Subcommittee meetings have been held. :
• Group One: Power and Structure of City Government: Rules/Process for Action
o November 12, 2025
o December 15, 2025
o January 14, 2025
• Group Two: City Council: Elections, Powers and Conduct of Meetings
o December 8, 2025
o February 9, 2026
o March 9, 2026
• Group Three: Senior Officials: Duties and Qualifications
o January 12, 2025
o March 11, 2026
• Group Four: Boards and Commissions: Composition, Powers and Duties
o November 13, 2025
o December 15, 2025
o February 12, 2026
o March 12, 2026
• Group Five: Civil Service: General Rules for Classified and Unclassified Employees; Commission Composition and Duties
o November 17, 2025
o January 5, 2026
o January 14, 2026
• Group Six: Fiscal Administration and Procurement
o February 4, 2026
o March 17, 2026
At each monthly CRC meeting, the CRC agenda includes a report out from each Ad Hoc Subcommittee that has met since their last “report out.” Report outs include a summary of issues discussed, input (if any) received from Charter Project “stakeholders” (for example, relevant City Staff, Boards and Commissions), benchmarking information and proposed next steps. CRC questions and input are also solicited.
Most Ad Hoc Subcommittees have moved beyond mere discussions of issues and are now reviewing and commenting on actual proposed Charter language. To continue this work effort, many more Ad Hoc Subcommittee meetings are already on calendar. Ultimately, each Ad Hoc Subcommittee will be presenting their proposed language changes to the CRC for CRC consideration and action on what to recommend to the City Council. The collection of all of these recommendations will then be packaged and presented to the City Council for Council consideration and action.
Scheduling
At the March 18, 2026 CRC Meeting, staff suggested that in order to complete the project, there would likely need to be more CRC meetings beyond the currently scheduled April 15th, May 20th and June 17th meetings. CRC understood and was amenable to this. Staff is currently looking at the calendar to propose additional meeting dates.
The current intent is to be in a position to present the full Charter Project CRC recommendation to the City Council at the June 9, 2026 Council meeting. After receiving Council preliminary input, the CRC would meet further, as needed to, make any requested modifications and refine the proposal. The recommendation would then be re-presented to Council later in June or early July. If Council desires to proceed to place a measure on the ballot, the full ballot package would need to be delivered to the County Registrar by no later than August 7, 2026. In order not to intrude on the Council’s scheduled summer recess, that means final City Council action on Charter update ballot proposal would need to occur at the Council’s currently scheduled July 14, 2026 meeting.
Pros and Cons of the Proposed Comprehensive Reorganization.
At their February 18, 2026 meeting the Charter Project CRC considered the proposed comprehensive Charter reorganization concept, along with the pros and cons of such approach presented by staff. The primary arguments in favor included: (1) such a reorganization would be perfectly aligned with the Charter Project’s stated purposes by making the Charter more modern and “user friendly” for the public and for professional staff; (2) the deletion of unused Section headings and internal history references would make the Charter shorter, less cluttered and easier to read; (3) the proposed new “tools” including an expanded definitions section, and a detailed matrix with Section amendment and numbering history, along with references to relevant City Code sections, would also enhance Charter usability. Arguments against a comprehensive Charter reorganization included: (1) if an underline/strikeout of the proposed changes were to be placed on the ballot, it could turn off the voting public if it appeared that the changes were not being fully explained or evident; (2) if the full text of all changes needed to be included on the ballot it would increase the cost of the ballot measure; and (3) if a measure with comprehensive renumbering were to be approved by voters, full implementation would require a review and update of the City Code and all other materials referencing the Charter to update the existing Section references.
Ultimately, the CRC approved proceeding with the comprehensive reorganization. On balance, since they were already undertaking a comprehensive update of the Charter, the consensus of the CRC was that now was the right time to also implement the comprehensive reorganization and renumbering system. They were also apprised that there was no legal requirement to place an underline/strikeout version of proposed changes on the ballot, so that a very messy and complicated document need not be what the voters acted on. Instead, a link could be provided in the ballot measure and/or the City Attorney’s Impartial Analysis to the City’s website for the full Charter language. This would include an underline strikeout of all proposed changes, a detailed description of all the proposed changes, and an extensive FAQ Section. In light of this, the CRC voted unanimously to support including the comprehensive Charter reorganization concept as part of their work plan.
On staff’s suggestion, the CRC included in their action a request that City Council be provided a preview of the proposed reorganization in case there was any issues or concerns. This item presents that preview, along with the current draft reorganization summary (Attachment 2). If the Council, or any individual Councilmember has any concerns with this approach, this item can be pulled for further discussion. Any individual Councilmember can also contact City Attorney Googins with any questions. CRC Members Diamond and Tansey, along with CRC Chair Nikolai have indicated that they would also be available to respond to any questions at the April 7th meeting if necessary.
RECOMMENDATION
Recommendation
Note and file the report.
Staff
Reviewed by: Courtney Mohammadi, Legal Executive Assistant, City Attorney’s Office
Approved by: Glen Googins, City Attorney
ATTACHMENTS
1. Charter Project “Levels” Summary
2. Proposed Charter Reorganization Summary (DRAFT dated February 18, 2026)