Challenging Charter Changes

Drinking from a fire hose. That's an expression I learned in my days as a teacher's assistant. Sometimes that's what it feels like to a student when you're overwhelming them with a lot of information in a short period of time. The council last week finalized resolutions for the charter changes that will appear on the August ballot. They proposed no fewer than seven individual ballot propositions affecting the charter. I agree that our charter needs some updating, but what the minutes from the charter review commission fail to reflect is after I said "our charter should be a living document" I went on to say that we should only address one or two charter issues per ballot. Let the voters digest one thing at a time. If you frustrate people by overwhelming them in the voting booth, they're likely to just vote "no" on everything. Here's what we're going to be considering in August: 050953: Calling for submission to the voters of Kansas City, at a special election to be held on August 8, a question amending the Charter of Kansas City by repealing its current twenty articles and enacting thirteen new articles to be known as the Charter of the City of Kansas City. 051253: Calling for submission to the voters of Kansas City, at a special election to be held on August 8 a question amending the Charter of Kansas City to require a committee of petitioners seeking the recall of the mayor or a council member to identify the actions or failure to act on the part of the official •051254: Calling for submission to the voters of Kansas City, at a special election to be held on August 8, a question amending the Charter of Kansas City to increase the mandatory retirement age of municipal judges from age 65 to age 70 060508: Calling for submission to the voters of Kansas City, at a special election to be held on August 8 a question amending the Charter of Kansas City to provide for a vote by the mayor to fill a vacancy in the office of council member only in the event of a tie; •060511: Calling for submission to the voters of Kansas City, at a special election to be held on August 8, a question amending the Charter of Kansas City to enact a new section 463.12 to authorize the removal from the park system and sale of approximately 1.7 acres of park property located generally at 22nd Street and Gillham Road commonly known as the Fire Alarm Exchange Building contingent upon use of the proceeds of any sale to be used for the restoration of the Women’s Leadership Fountain located at 9th Street and The Paseo •051255: Calling for submission to the voters of Kansas City, at a special election to be held on August 8 a question amending the Charter of Kansas City to extend term limits applicable to future mayors and councils from two to three consecutive terms 060549: Calling for submission to the voters of Kansas City, at a special election to be held on August 8, a question amending the Charter of Kansas City to repeal term limits for the mayor and members of the council; I'll admit most of these are pretty innocuous like selling the old Fire Alarm Exchange Building, but two term limit proposals? These people really want to stay in office!