During their regularly scheduled meeting last night, the Jersey Village City Charter Review Commission met with the members of the Jersey Village City Council to discuss the city charter and possible changes. As it turns out, the discussion was rather brief.
With the exception of a few questions and some clarification from the city attorney, the members of the Jersey Village City Council had no suggestions for changes to the city charter. As Mayor Justin Ray pointed out, “I think if we had some real problems with the city charter, we would have seen them by now – they would have manifested themselves in difficult city operations.” The Mayor’s comments reflected the consensus among the city department heads that met with the Commission in December. During that meeting, there were some questions to clarify interpretations of the city charter, but none of the departments raised any real concerns with the day to day operations of the city under its charter.
One notable discussion was sparked by an observation made by Council member Andrew Mitcham: How does the city continue to recruit citizens to serve on boards and commissions? While not directly related to the city charter, with the extensive experience in city government present at the meeting between the Commission and the City Council, there was a very productive discussion on the issue. Ideas ranged from public recognition of those who currently serve, to providing meals to those who take time out of their evenings to serve on committees and boards, and including resurrecting a past event: a year-end social gathering for all citizens who participate on citizen boards and committees.
In the end, it was decided that the decades of discussion and continued review of the city charter by citizens and past council members has produced a document that seems to continue to work well even today.
