Lancaster’s Home Rule Study Commission is rounding third and heading for home in its process of drafting a city government charter.
However, at least one major debate remains: Should City Council be elected at large, or by district?
Also pending: Deliberation on recommendations being developed by the commission’s finance subcommittee. It’s looking at three issues, subcommittee Chairman John McGrann said:
- A limit on how much city budgets — specifically, revenue — can increase from year to year, and under what circumstances it can be overridden;
- Tax exemptions for lower-income taxpayers;
- Potential rules requiring City Council to respond to budget questions from the public.
Both committees’ recommendations will be on the agenda for the commission’s upcoming Aug. 1 meeting, Chairman Brian Adams said toward the end of Thursday’s meeting, which lasted two and a half hours.
The districting debate
Regarding district-based elections, all three members of the commission’s City Council subcommittee — Chairman Tony Dastra, Darlene Byrd and Maxine Cook — are in favor. Other members of the full commission have been skeptical, especially Carl Feldman and Peter Barber.
This week, Dastra provided a draft charter chapter (PDF) on City Council to the commission on behalf of the subcommittee. As he emphasized in prepared remarks Thursday, it covers much more than election methods: It touches on term limits, City Council compensation, and requirements for livestreaming and archiving to make city government more accessible.
“It is the content of this article that both inspires me most and gives hope to others who are unfamiliar with the pulleys and levers of government,” Dastra said. He urged his fellow commissioners to keep open minds and be willing to embrace change.
Members of the public, including former mayors Rick Gray and Art Morris, have come out on both sides of the issue. On Thursday, the commission heard from four constituents saying the idea of by-district elections should be either abandoned or at least delayed for further study.
One of them was Marshall Miller, chairman of the city Democratic Committee. City voters are primarily concerned about the city’s financial plight, and that should be the focus, he said, echoing comments he made previously to One United Lancaster. If proponents of districting want to pursue that option, they can petition for a referendum after the charter is adopted, he said.
He asked Dastra about the financial implications of expanding City Council from seven to nine members, as the draft chapter calls for; and of the decennial redistricting that would be required.
Between online redistricting tools and the city’s in-house expertise, redistricting shouldn’t cost much, Dastra said. As for expanding council, the draft chapter calls for $12,000 annual salaries and suggests council members should be eligible for benefits in certain circumstances but “nothing’s set in stone,” he said.
John Gouveia said he thinks of City Council as akin to a citywide “board of directors” and said district divisions would erode trust. He asked the commission to keep its “eye on the ball” and concentrate on fiscal reform.
Chapter by chapter
The commission spent the bulk of Thursday evening tying up loose ends and reviewing draft charter chapters prepared by the Pennsylvania Economy League, the consulting nonprofit that’s assisting it.
Commissioners agreed that petitioners seeking the introduction or repeal of a city ordinance should have to collect signatures equal to 20% of the most recent mayoral vote. Currently that would be 1,232, based on the 6,161 votes cast in November 2021. The threshold now is the same, 20%, but petitioners would have more time: 45 days, versus just 15 under current law.
Citizens would also be able to circulate petitions demanding City Council consider a particular topic or concern. At their July 2 meeting, the commission members set a lower signature threshold, 3%, for that option.
The transition process
PEL’s Gerald Cross and Fred Reddig went over the transition to home rule that would take place beginning Jan. 1, 2025, if voters approve the charter in November. Broadly speaking, the normal business of the city would continue as before: Existing laws would remain in place, elected officials would serve out their terms and so on.
City Council would have a year to draft and enact an Ethics Code, with advice from an Ethics Commission authorized in the charter. It would have 18 months to enact an Administrative Code; in the meantime, the existing administrative code would remain in force, although any changes explicitly laid out in the charter, such as budget procedures, would take effect immediately.
The ABCs
Commission members debated at some length the draft charter’s provisions for authorities, boards and commissions (hereafter, “boards”) before deciding to leave them as-is. The charter calls for the city to promote diversity in board appointments, “including but not limited to, geographic City residency, gender, economic, racial, ethnic and other characteristics.”
Darlene Byrd argued for adding in term limits, saying there are too many incumbents who continue to serve year after year after year. More boards should have members appointed by City Council instead of the mayor, she said, and on boards where city staff are members, such as the Traffic Commission, voting power should be limited to their ordinary-citizen colleagues.
Other commission members disagreed. The city has made determined to broaden recruitment of candidates for boards, with minimal success, they said; and the institutional knowledge that comes with long tenure can be valuable.
There’s a lot of variance in the length of board terms, Solicitor Barry Handwerger said, so setting a one-size-fits-all term limit in the charter would have sharply disparate effects. Boards are established by ordinance, he noted, so City Council generally has the power to amend term lengths and set term limits, if it chooses.
Except for the Parking Authority, City Council reviews and approves all board appointments, including reappointments, Mayor Danene Sorace said. She told Byrd she agrees that many boards have minimal usefulness or are obsolete; unfortunately, those are generally the ones that state law requires the city to have.
