- Voters approved five city charter amendments, with more than 55% of support on each.
- One amendment will up pay for city commissioners by about $50,000.
- Watch the video to hear about the other amendments:
BROADCAST TRANSCRIPT:
More than 82 percent of Leon County voters cast their ballots in the general election.
The turnout was a bit lower for city voters who made important decisions about the future of Tallahassee.
About 70% of city voters made a decision on changes to the city charter.
Voters ultimately decided to move forward with all five city charter amendments.
One that got most of the attention: Amendment 1.
It was the change to set city commissioner's salaries equal to the Leon County Commissioners.
A raise of almost $50,000, bumping their pay to about $95,000.
When I spoke with a member of the charter review committee two weeks ago, he said the move was controversial.
"The arguments for doing that is that the county commission is a smaller entity budget wise and if you want to get good people to run for the city commission, should they have to be wealthy to do it?" said Mark Mustian. "The counter to that this is really service, it's not employment."
One passed with 56% of support.
The other amendments weren't as close.
Amendment 3 passed with more than 69% of the vote, moving elections between two commission candidates from the primary to general election.
Mayor John Dailey said he was happy to see voters have a say on local changes.
"This is how the process is supposed to work," Dailey said. "We convened the charter review commission that spent a lot of time on these issues. We placed these issues on the ballot. The general public had time to study up on the issues and they passed them overwhelmingly."
City leaders will get their raise the week of November 11.
