By Mayor Mark Sheldon
According to the Florida League of Cities, every city in the State of Florida has a City Charter. A charter is considered the governing document for the community. Panama City Beach’s City Charter is going on 52 years old.
Since its adoption in 1970, it has been updated 11 times – in 1978, 1982, 1983, 1984, 1988, 1997, 2002, 2006, 2010, 2011, and 2014. We are now proposing another update, via voter referendum, which is the same procedure followed for these previous updates. The amendments will be placed on the April 19 Municipal Super Tuesday ballot. The exact terminology for these eight ballot questions is to be approved after this article is published and can be viewed on our website at www.pcbfl.gov.
For these Charter amendments, the City took a unique approach by appointing one citizen from each of the City’s four wards to review the Charter and make suggestions. The Citizen Charter Review Advisory Committee, led by Vice Mayor Geoff McConnell, met more than a dozen times over several months to discuss how to make the document more viable and relevant in today’s world. As these updates were hashed out, the citizen committee brought in City staff and the Civil Service Board chairman to discuss any and all changes.
It was a great process, and we ended up with a list of changes longer than we anticipated. We knew there were inefficiencies in areas like purchasing, soliciting bids, buying authority for the City Manager and the inability to make emergency purchases. But this group went over every word, identifying and weeding out language, landing with 27 amendments.
Some of the changes are miniscule. For example, staff wanted to be able to use digital and electronic signatures on documents. This is a widely accepted practice in today’s world.
Another amendment requires that those seeking office in the City be a resident of the City for at least a year prior to running. Citizens serving on the committee were adamant about candidates being invested in the community. They wanted to see candidates who had lived here long enough to know the community and the issues we face.
Another proposed amendment raises the threshold for routine purchases crucial to daily operations from $10,000 to $25,000. With inflation and supply chain issues that continue to drive prices, a $10,000 threshold for purchases is simply too low to enable our departments to function efficiently. Some cities and counties have purchasing thresholds as high as $250,000.
We want voters to feel comfortable with these proposed changes. We know Charter amendments are not the most exciting thing to come before our community. But, they are important. And the process of change has been spearheaded by everyday folks. A big thank you for the hours of work put in by our volunteer committee members Ryan Houk, Rick Ramos, Zach Coleman and Matt Bush.
Look for educational videos coming in March which will explain each of the eight ballot questions. They are:
• Increasing the residency requirement for mayor and city council candidates from six months to 12 months.
• Setting a cap on sole source purchases for the Utility Department without competitive bid, at $50,000, and increasing the purchase threshold on competitive quotes for non-sole source goods from $25,000 to $100,000.
• Increasing the City Manager’s emergency purchase authority to $100,000, and the routine purchase authority from $10,000 to $25,000.
• Authorizing the use of competitive bids obtained by other governmental agencies or cooperative purchasing entities for goods without separately advertising for bids.
• Exempting the purchase of goods and services from competitive bid requirements for IT under certain conditions related to proprietary software designed for municipalities and in the case of cyber-attacks.
• Establishing the duties of the Assistant City Manager; requiring an annual review for the City Clerk and City Attorney; and providing for a public hearing for the City Manager if terminated for cause.
• Revising the Civil Service Board’s duties streamline hiring and updating causes for termination by removing language including immorality and drunkenness.
• Approving miscellaneous Charter updates relating to budget, execution of documents with digital signatures, and extending the publication period for bids from 14 to 21 days.
