The city of Dallas is underway with a one-a-decade process to review the city charter, the blue-print for how the city works. There's a select committee taking input right now until January. The group will then make a recommendation to the Dallas City Council to decide whether to send proposed changes to the voters.
The items up for discussion: the number of years councilmembers can serve at a time, whether the mayor should have more power, and when the city elections should be held.
Lone Star Politics on NBC 5 with the Dallas Morning News spoke with Chairman of the Charter Review Commission, Allen Vaught, on Sunday. There are fifteen members of the commission in total.
The employment law attorney and former state lawmaker describes the process as updating "the constitution" of the city.
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"It's a combination of things. One, it is keeping up with growth," said Vaught, "There's other things like big policy items like moving our elections from May to November. One side says it will reduce turnout and we know it will reduce cost. The other side says it will make it more partisan. But ultimately that's something the charter review would have to recommend."
Vaught also noted there are other options that are "not as popular" like raising the salaries of elected officials.
Right now the city is a council-manager form of government, where the manager makes a lot of the daily decisions of what happens in the city. The mayor acts like the chairman of the board in a corporation, directs the meetings but has the same voting power as every other council member. Other cities, like Houston, have the mayor as the chief executive that makes hiring, firing, and other important decisions in the daily life of city government.
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The strong mayor proposal may be the most controversial because of Mayor Johnson's recent switch to the Republican Party in a majority Democrat city. Dallas voters have rejected similar ideas twice before.
The commission will have meetings twice a month and eventually propose changes. The public can send them options until Jan. 19 according to Vaught. In April they will make a final determination and send recommendations to the city council.
"I really want the input and I think all members of the commission want input from the public on that," said Vaught, "There could be some good ideas that come in for us to change an amendment as it's written."
Any proposed changes will come to a public vote in November. One overriding goal is to improve voter participation.
"I think it's just what people want. When we have our May elections for city government, the turnout is embarrassing. Right. People are wanting ways to get people more involved," said Vaught, "That seems to be a very popular theme right now: voter empowerment."
