Charter Review Committee Meets

By WRILEY NELSON
ONEONTA

The Charter Review Committee of the Oneonta Common Council met on Thursday, July 20 to discuss potential changes to the city’s governing document.

Chairman Scott Harrington (R-6th Ward) and members Len Carson (R-5) and Kaytee Lipari Shue (D-4) met with City Attorney David Merzig to discuss a potential amendment that would allow a majority of the Common Council to remove members of boards and commissions.

Lipari Shue said that under the current system, many boards and commissions do not have attendance requirements and often struggle to conduct business or even achieve a quorum. Merzig cited a statewide legal opinion that requires a majority of an entire body, not just a majority of a quorum, to pass resolutions; with no attendance enforcement mechanism and no way for the full council to remove board members, absent members can slow down city business significantly.

“It makes a certain amount of sense to be able to appoint someone else,” he said.

The committee also discussed changing the city’s hiring process to allow the city administrator and human resources department to hire, suspend or remove employees in budgeted positions. Under the current system, the administrator must obtain council ratification to hire department heads. Harrington said that this requirement adds significant delays to the hiring process and that the city has “lost a lot of good potential candidates” due to the slow and uncertain advancement of job offers.

Pending a complete legal review by Merzig, the committee will present its findings to the full Common Council at the August 1 meeting. The current version of the Oneonta City Charter can be found at https://ecode360.com/15575439.