Bartlesville considers local election overhaul to align city and school elections

Changes to Bartlesville's election cycle may be on the horizon following a discussion in an open meeting led by City Manager Mike Bailey after the city council's monthly meeting Monday.

Discussions revolved around possibly amending the city charter to extend city councilor terms and shift election dates as a way to align city elections with local school elections.

Bailey spearheaded the dialogue, recommending extending city councilor terms from two to three years and rescheduling the election date from November to April. His proposal aims to synchronize the city's elections with Bartlesville Public Schools elections, centralizing the focus on local electoral matters during April.

"I think that it would probably be wise of us to align all of our GO bonds and our sales tax elections to simply put them in April," Bailey said. "This is your day for your local stuff. You need to be at the polls in April if you care about local government."

The last instance the city charter was amended was in 2010. At that time, voters approved a shift in councilor terms from four to two years.

Bailey noted that under the current two-year term, there are potential risks, like losing institutional knowledge when the entire council is newly elected and the fact that many local issues get lost in a more broad general election.

"The focus is really on national issues, and rightly so, because there is a lot of money spent on national issues while local candidates will receive little attention," Bailey said. "People will be completely overwhelmed with Facebook ads and ads on television and not about local candidates."

The discussed three-year councilor terms are aimed at staggering elections and limiting the number of concurrently running councilors to two.

Bailey said this would be a way to preserve continuity, experience and institutional memory within the council, giving members more time to acclimate to their roles without immediate re-election pressures.

For these changes to take effect, a formal amendment of the city charter is required. A city charter amendment is subject to the approval of Bartlesville voters.

While no official decisions were cemented, the evolving suggestions could be featured in the city council's December agenda for further exploration and public consideration.

This article originally appeared on Bartlesville Examiner-Enterprise: Keep it local: Bartlesville City Council discusses election changes