Four races and 23 propositions will be featured
OKLAHOMA CITY – Altus voters will have an abundance of choices in the June 30 statewide primary election.
One ballot, for Republicans only, has candidates for U.S. Senate, an Oklahoma Corporation Commission seat, the two candidates vying to replace Charles Ortega as the House District 52 State Representative, and the county sheriff’s race between incumbent Roger LeVick and challenger Glenn Coker.
Two other ballots will feature 23 proposed city charter amendments. Propositions 1-11 appear on one ballot, Propositions 12-23 are on the second ballot.
“I’m not a political scientist who specializes in city elections, but that’s a lot of items,” said Pat Meirick, director of the Political Communication Center at the University of Oklahoma, and an associate professor in the OU Department of Communication specializing in political and mass communication. “That’s a new one for me.”
As of June 1, Jackson County had 10,156 active voters and Altus had approximately 6,980 active voters, according to the county Election Board. The polls will be open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m.
Prior to an election seven years ago, Altus had an aldermanic form of government. The mayor was elected at-large and council members were elected from each of the four wards. The mayor was not considered a member of the council for quorum or voting purposes, but could vote to break a tie vote.
In 2013, however, Altus residents adopted a home-rule municipal charter that provides for a council/city manager form of government. The city has two elected council members who represent each of the four wards; a mayor elected at-large who has “all powers, rights, privileges, duties and responsibilities of a councilman, including the right to vote on questions”; and an appointed city manager, in this case former State Auditor and Inspector Gary Jones.
Mayor Jack Smiley, a Jackson County native who retired as the Altus Fire Chief, noted that Altus has a hybrid form of government. Besides electing council members and the mayor, Altus citizens also elect the police chief (but not the fire chief), the city clerk/ treasurer, and the street commissioner.
“We don’t want to give up electing our local officials,” Smiley said. If ‘push comes to shove,’ all three of those officials “answer to the people of this city, not the city manager,” he said.
One proposed charter change would accord more power to the three-member Merit System Board appointed by the city council.
Currently, according to the city charter, the “final decision” on an employee’s layoff, suspension, demotion or removal rests with the city manager “or other authority having power of removal.” If Proposition 20 is approved, the Merit System Board “shall be the final arbiter between [the] City Manager and elect- ed officials concerning employment disputes.”
Proposition 12 would amend the residency requirement for the city manager. The current manager – the town’s fifth in five years, former State Auditor and Inspector Gary Jones – lives in Comanche County, southwest of Cache “about halfway between Indiahoma and Chattanooga.”
The proposed charter change would mandate that the city manager need not be a resident of Altus or Oklahoma, but during his tenure in office he must reside “within a mileage limit set by [the] council at hiring and allowing a ‘grace period’ for relocation.”
Similarly, the City Council would be authorized by Proposition 14 to establish residency requirements for the city attorney. It also would clarify that the city attorney is the legal adviser to department administrators and the city’s elected officials.
Proposition 2 would allow for removal of a councilmember who “ceases to be a resident of the ward” he/she was elected to represent.
Proposition 3 would limit reimbursement of councilmembers and the mayor solely to “justified expenses” for travel outside the city limits. The mayor could receive no more than $400 per month and each councilmember could be reimbursed no more than $200 per month.
The city council would be required by Proposition 4 to delve into “matters of criminal, financial, or personnel abuse, or hostile work environment of any office, department or agency of the city...” Additionally, the council would be required to adopt a code of ethics that would “govern the interactions between Council members and between [the] Council and the public.”
Proposition 5 would mandate that no member of the city council could “give orders on ordinary administrative matters to any subordinate” of the city manager or any of the three elected city officials “either publicly or privately.”
A candidate for police chief would be required by Proposition 6 to be a sworn law enforcement officer for at least a decade. Also, the police chief would be directed to “prepare and present” a departmental budget each year.
Propositions 7 and 8 would require the city council to review the salaries of the clerk-treasurer and the street commissioner no less than three months prior to the election for those positions. Like the police chief, they, too, would be required to prepare departmental budgets each year.
Proposition 9 would create a Budget Committee consisting of the city manager, the police chief, the city clerk-treasurer, the street commissioner, the city’s chief financial officer and the city attorney.
Each elected city official would be allowed by Proposition 11 “to present, and to be heard,” his/her proposed department budget “and perceived departmental needs” prior to preparation of the annual municipal budget.
Anyone, elected or appointed, who has the responsibility for hiring, firing, promoting, demoting, or disciplining city employees, would be mandated by Proposition 10 to comply with state and federal laws, the City Charter and city ordinances “in the hiring, termination and disciplinary process.”
The city manager would be required by Proposition 13 to work “in partnership with the elected officials” when appointing, disciplining, promoting, or, “when necessary for the good of the service, firing non-elected heads of administrative departments.”
Propositions 7, 8 and 13 also would designate the city manager, the police chief, the city clerk-treasurer, the street commissioner and the city attorney to comprise a committee that would prepare agendas for presentation to the city council.
Proposition 23 would include elected officials, as well as the mayor, the city manager, and members of the city council, among the list of individuals who “must avoid conflicts of interest in selling or bartering anything to the City of Altus...” Those officials are subject to forfeiture of office in the event of a conflict of interest.
Propositions 17 and 19 would amend the city charter to schedule municipal election dates in accordance with state law.
Candidates for elected city offices would be required by Proposition 16 to file with the Jackson County Election Board a declaration of candidacy for their respective wards.
Proposition 18 provides that if more than two candidates file for an elective city office, the two candidates who receive the greatest number of votes cast in the primary election would advance to the general election.
Four proposals would make minor changes to the charter.
Proposition 1 is merely a matter of semantics. It would decree that the city of Altus has a “charter form of government rather than the council-manager form of government.” In fact, Altus already has a city charter – the current one was adopted by city voters in 2013 – and will continue to have a modified council-manager form of government regardless of how the June 30 election turns out.
Proposition 15 would authorize a title change: from Clerk-Treasurer to “City Clerk-Treasurer”.
Proposition 21 would amend Article VII, Section 4, which pertains to “outside activities” of city employees, by deleting the word “he” from that paragraph.
Another proposal would correct a scrivener’s error. Article VII, Section 12, decrees that, “If a court of competent jurisdiction should hold any section or part of a section of this Charter invalid, such holding shall not affect the remainder of this Charter...” The title of that section is “Separability clause.”
Proposition 22 would correct the title of that section to “Severability” clause.