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Tallahassee voters approve all five city charter amendments

Tallahassee City Hall
WFSU
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WFSU
Tallahassee City Hall

Tallahassee voters approved all five charter amendments that came before them on election day.

Election day marked the end to the charter amendment process that began with at times heated meetings of the Charter Review Commission in January and February. The Tallahassee City Commission then decided to send five amendments for voters to decide. The amendments needed a simple majority to pass. Not one of them got below 55% support

Here’s a breakdown of how every proposed amendment fared on election day.

Tallahassee Commissioners are (are not) getting a raise

While it passed, raises to Tallahassee City Commissioners got the least amount of support out of all the charter amendments, getting 56% support.

Currently, city commissioners except the mayor earn half of what Leon County commissioners make, or almost $50,000. The ballot initiative will tie their annual salary to the amount county commissioners make, which is almost $100,000.

Tallahassee City Commission Dianne Williams-Cox was one of the three commissioners who supported it going on the ballot. She said she hopes it will allow more people to be able to financially take on the task of being a commission in the future.

“It's about those who are going to come behind me. Unless you're wealthy or retired, you would not be able to do this job. Going forward, it has become a full-time job. It is no longer a half-time job. I'm very pleased that this, this occurred for the future of our city commission, so that regular people can serve as commissioners,” she said.

Ethics Board jurisdiction gets expanded

Over 72% of Tallahassee voters approved a change the will expand the city’s Independent Ethics Board’s jurisdiction to city commissioners no matter what board they are serving on.

The current Charter gives the board jurisdiction over city commissioners but doesn’t say whether it applies when they sit on boards of external governmental bodies, such as the Blueprint Intergovernmental Agency and the Community Redevelopment Agency. The change to the charter makes it clear that the jurisdiction does apply to their actions on those bodies.

This was not a controversial one for city commissioners, as they voted unanimously to send it to voters.

Two-candidate city elections will be run during the general election

The voters that showed up for a general election decided they want to be able to decide all city races at a general election.

Currently, two-candidate city races are decided by the results of the Primary Election in August. Almost 70% of voters backed moving those two-candidate races to the general election.

The city commission unanimously supported putting the change on the ballot. The last two-candidate city commission race that was decided in August was when orthopedic surgeon David Bellamy unsuccessfully challenged Commissioner Jeremy Matlow in 2022. Matlow won that race with 55.8% support.

City Charter will be reviewed every ten years

The most popular charter change was the one that enacts a regular charter review process.

Almost 81% of voters supported having a periodic charter review process every 10 years. 14 years passed between this charter review and the previous one.

There was little discussion on this item during the process and it got unanimous support at every level.

Inspector General office becomes more independent

65% of voters supported giving the Inspector General more autonomy.

The Inspector General’s office conducts investigations, audits and inspections of city operations. The amendment makes it so no city commission can abolish the office by city ordinance and require a supermajority of the commissioners to remove the Inspector General from office. The change also outlines that a dismissal must be for cause and the Inspector General must be given the opportunity to rebut the cause in a public forum.

This change passed the city commission 4-1, with Mayor John Dailey as the sole dissenting vote.

Tristan Wood is a senior producer and host with WFSU Public Media. A South Florida native and University of Florida graduate, he focuses on state government in the Sunshine State and local panhandle political happenings.