Revised charter is sent to City Council

BURBANK — The Charter Review Committee unanimously approved a revised city charter on Monday, sending the document and its 15 proposed changes to the City Council for review.

If members approve revisions to the 90-year-old charter, the recommended revisions will go on the Nov. 7 ballot.

"The council has the option to either place the entire package as recommended by our panel before the voters as is, or they also have the option of changing it — modifying, putting other things in and taking things out," Committee Chairwoman Carolyn Jackson said. "Of course, we'd prefer the former, but all we're asking from the council at this time is, we're not asking them to endorse it and we're not asking them to condemn it. We're asking them to put it on the ballot and let the voters decide. We trust the voters."

One of the committee's recommendations would enable the council to fill a vacated council seat through an appointment, rather than hold a special election, she said.

"The appointment by the City Council is only effective until the next regular election, so in any event it would never be for longer than two years," she said. "And the reason we did it that way is because we didn't want to incur the expense of another election and we also wanted the city's business to continue being done."

But some say that giving the City Council the power to fill a public seat, even temporarily, undermines the democratic process.

"I don't see virtually any reason why an elected position ever would just be appointed," Burbank resident David Piroli said. "I get the arguments that a special election would cost money and all that … but there's a principle here and the cost is not as important as the principle. To me, when it comes to elected positions — since that is the very heart of our democratic system — to hell with the cost of a special election. Our freedom and our control of our government is dependent on those sorts of elections."

In addition, allowing the council to appoint someone to a vacant seat opens the door to malfeasance within the city, he said. The city, for instance, could offer an elected official a lucrative position on the city staff, in order to free up a seat for a hand-picked replacement, he said.

"You can see how that would leave it open to some pretty heavy corruption," he said.

But other charter committee recommendations do not arouse as much public scrutiny, such as several organizational changes to make the document more accessible to readers.