01/17/2007 (2) - Laserfiche WebLink

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Chairman Wheeler thanked Ms. Delegal for the report and invited questions from the audience. Ms. Delegal wanted to respond to a question that was asked regarding the "Ways of Creating a Charter". She stated that by State laws there are three (3) ways that a Charter can come into existence and fundamental to all of them is that the citizens vote. Further, there can be a special act that comes through the Legislature, through the local legislative delegation, then goes to the ballot, and a Charter review Commission can be created either by resolution of the Board or by 15% (a petition process of 15% of the registered voters). She disclosed that three (3) of the 19 counties were created by Special Act; eight (8) by ordinance of the Board of County Commissioners; and seven (7) by Charter review proposal. Charter counties created by Ordinance are Hillsborough, Leon, Palm Beach, Alachua, Orange, Osceola, Seminole and Lee, and of that group at least four (4) had strong Citizen Review Committees. Chairman Wheeler invited questions first from the Board and then the public, expressing that there was no need for a debate as this may be dealt with later at other workshops and no actions would be taken today. Commissioner O'Bryan thanked Ms. Delegal for "a very educational presentation". He noticed the majority of other Charter counties elected not to change the status of the constitutional officers, and asked if we were to decide to go that way, was there anything we could do so the constitutional officers are more protected as elected officials and they remain under general Florida laws to perform their duties. Ms. Delegal advised that one way to accomplish that was to have a provision in the Charter saying the Charter is not altering their constitutional status and that could only be later changed by an amendment of the Charter. Public Workshop 01/17/07 5 Charter Government