- Five changes to the Tallahassee City Charter will be on the General Election ballot.
- One amendment would increase pay for city commissioners by about $50,000.
- Watch the video for a breakdown of the amendments and their impacts.
BROADCAST TRANSCRIPT:
Neighbors across Tallahassee are at the polls, making decisions on important issues impacting Tallahassee and beyond.
While you may be familiar with the candidates on the ballot, I'm took a closer look at the issues and amendments.
Tallahassee neighbors voting on Monday will see city charter amendments on their ballots.
The way the referendum came about: the City Charter Review Committee.
It's a group made up of 10 neighbors appointed by city leaders.
Chair Mark Mustian said it's a way to ensure the city's governing document stays true to the needs of the city.
"It's sort of the bedrock fundamentals of the city," Mustian said. "This is how we govern ourselves."
He and the committee recommended five charter amendments appear on the ballot.
The first: if city commissioners should receive the same pay as Leon County Commissioners. A yes vote would up city commissioner's salaries by about $50,000. They currently make about $45,000.
"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?" Mustian said. "The counter to that this is really service, it's not employment."
Amendment 2 would expand the Tallahassee Independent Ethics Board to handle complaints about city commissioners acting on government boards.
Amendment 5 would define the role of the city inspector general, giving them the power to conduct audits.
Amendment 4 would establish a review of the charter every ten years
Another notable amendment: 3. It would move the races for city commission to the general election rather than the primary if only two candidates are running.
"The thinking is there is more people that vote in November and if there's only two people running," Mustian said. "Some people would rather leave it in August because there's more in theory informed or committed voters then."
For a look at how this could impact our local races, I turned to University of Florida Political Science Professor Dr. Sharon Austin.
She said local amendments like these ones are important.
"I would say those amendments have just as much if not more of an impact on their lives than the state amendments," Austin said.
Austin also said Florida's Constitutional Amendment 4 will drive many voters in Tallahassee and state-wide to the polls.
"Abortion has always been such a contentious issue," Austin said. "I think that one will be the one to cause a larger turnout because people want to vote for it and against it."
With all of these issues on the ballot, Mustian said he hopes neighbors vote on the amendments impacting their own backyard.
"These are supposed to be bedrock principles of our community and I hope people care about that and are paying attention to it," Mustian said. "I think they will."
Neighbors can weigh in on these issues at one of the 10 early voting locations or on Election Day. You can find those here.
