CLAYTON — A commission considering structural changes to the ӣƵ County charter wrapped up a year of meetings Monday without agreeing to put any major proposals on the ballot next year.
A last-ditch effort to advance two measures — nonpartisan county elections and a bigger County Council — fell short of the required nine votes on the 14-member ӣƵ County Charter Commission.
Those two proposals joined a long list of other ideas that failed to garner enough support in a group that appeared hamstrung by turnover, absenteeism and disagreement between those members who worked for county government and those who did not.
“I really wish we had been able to get consensus on the bigger things,” commissioner Christopher Grahn-Howard, a budget policy coordinator for County Council, said at the close of the meeting in Clayton. “I wasn’t necessarily in favor of all of them ... but I wanted people to have the right to decide.”
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The commission did vote, however, to approve a number of technical changes to charter language meant to bring the document up to date with current county practices. The commission opted to place on the Aug. 6 ballot a fully restated charter, rather than separate questions to address each change.
Commissioner Greg Quinn, retired county director of revenue, said the technical changes weren’t controversial and did not require separate votes.
“We don’t have momentous things we approved here,” Quinn said before the vote. “These are cleanup provisions and there is not really that much that is important.”
One major proposal the commission considered Monday would have made all elections for county offices nonpartisan. ӣƵ County Councilman Ernie Trakas, R-6th District, speaking during a public comment period, asked the commission to put the measure before voters.
“You have a chance to approve one last substantive measure,” Trakas said. He asked the commission “to open your minds, consider the proposition before you, the importance of it, how it will improve the county, and at least let the voters decide.”
The idea had been popular at public hearings the commission held over the year, Grahn-Howard said.
“Everywhere we went, 99.9% of the people we heard from thought this was something that should go to the voters,” he said.
But Courtney Allen Curtis, a former state legislator, said the public hearings don’t necessarily reflect the opinions of most county residents. He joined six other commissioners in voting against the measure. Commissioner Sarah Crosley was absent from Monday’s meeting.
A second proposal would have increased the size of the County Council to nine members, from seven, if the county were to absorb the city of ӣƵ in a merger. Commissioners rejected the idea in a 4-8 vote. Commissioner Andrea Jackson-Jennings abstained from the vote.
Curtis, who voted in favor of the proposal, said more council members would be needed to ensure adequate representation should a merger take place. The Board of Freeholders, a joint city-county panel expected to launch meetings next year exploring a merger, may not take up the idea, Curtis said.
“If we didn’t entertain and adopt this, they may not do that, and then what do we do?” he said.
Maxine Schumacher, who was appointed to the commission by Trakas, said approving the idea could give voters the idea the commission supports a merger.
“That is not our position to take,” she said.
Monday was the commission’s last meeting. Under the charter, the commission, which met every week starting in February, must disband at the end of this year.
Gene McNary, the commission’s chairman, said after the meeting Monday he hopes the Board of Freeholders will consider some of the same ideas, he said.
“We didn’t make big changes, but we kicked it around and people spoke their mind and we didn’t get the nine votes,” said McNary, who served as county executive from 1975-1989. “So, maybe no action kind of indicates that people, after the discussion, are satisfied with the charter the way it is.”
