Stockton 'out of compliance' with city charter, council looks to make changes

Stockton City Council is willing to explore changes to the city charter after more than two decades of noncompliance.

The agenda item was a hot topic at Tuesday's meeting, where council members discussed the possibility of sending out a charter amendment to voters next year. The amendment would grant authority over the city's public information office to the city manager.

Public information officers handle community relations, media inquiries, requests for public records, and city website content.

In 2000, Stocktonians approved a measure amending the city's charter, which mandates the public information officer to work under the direction and supervision of the mayor.

But the city hasn't implemented that practice in the 23 years since the measure was voted on, according to City Attorney Lori Asuncion. Instead, the public information office is currently co-coordinated through the city manager's office and the mayor's office.

Under the proposed measure, the mayor's office would retain a public information officer to release news related to its office, while the city manager's office would handle news regarding all other city departments.

"I would support us continuing to look into it because this is the first time that this has come before this council," Mayor Kevin Lincoln said during discussion. "I know we've been dealing with the current practices for 23 years, but something happened 23 years ago and the voters, and the council at that time, made a specific decision with some specific intent."

Lincoln also suggested the city look into the reason why the governing body never implemented the amendment, despite being in place since 2000. The mayor called the matter a "cultural issue" that has plagued the city "from one administration to the other administration."

"23 years of inconsistency and noncompliance is unacceptable," Vice Mayor Kimberly Warmsley said. "We live in a community, we live in a city, where transparency has to happen."

This comes after District 3 Councilman Michael Blower raised the issue of charter authority over the city's public information office at the June 13 meeting. At the time, Blower said that the city's practice should align with charter language. He explained his stance further at the dais on Tuesday night.

"I've served on a lot of boards and I've been on a lot of clubs, and I've always felt like if you have bylaws that you don't like or that you don't use ... you shouldn't just blow off those bylaws, you should change them," Blower said. "I know that changing the charter is a bigger deal than making a bylaw change, but that's kind of what prompted me when I saw this ... when I saw that we've had this on our books since 2000 and it's never been used the way that that language is there."

Lincoln said in order for the city to come into full alignment with the charter, there has to be a change made.

"I can speak freely on this because the truth is, I'm not going to be the mayor in January of 2025," he said. "I'm not coming at this from a biased position. I'm approaching this from the standpoint that 23 years ago, a decision was made by this body and the voters, and we have an obligation and a responsibility to include the voters into this change ... we need to do what's right for the city of Stockton and come into compliance."

Councilwoman Susan Lenz, who represents District 4, said she agreed with Lincoln and asked the city attorney if there are other ordinances in the charter the city isn't following.

"This would also give us an opportunity to clean those other items up," she said.

"I haven't looked at every piece of the charter or all of our policies in that much depth, but I'm sure if we looked, we could find something," Asuncion replied.

During public comment, some were critical of council discussing the possible charter change. Former Vice Mayor Christina Fugazi — who recently announced she will be running for mayor next year — questioned if paying to put the item on a ballot was smart when "we can't even afford to pay to keep our police officers on the streets."

It would cost the city somewhere between $50,000 to $80,000 to send the measure out to voters, according to the San Joaquin County Registrar of Voters. Public hearings would have to take place before the city could put the measure on the ballot.

"Our charter should reflect our practice," District 2 Councilman Dan Wright said. "There are a lot of reasons why this hasn't been implemented and I think that should come out during any public hearing that we might hold ... if it's the will of the public that we don't change it, then obviously we don't change it, and that will can come at any time. It can come during the public hearing or it could come during the vote."

In addition, the mayor suggested that a citizen advisory board be established. Each member of the council would appoint a constituent from their district to be a part of the board and review the city charter to find any other discrepancies between the city's practices and charter language. Council members agreed with his suggestion.

"I just wanted to add that when you look at this advisory body ... you have some criteria that governs the selection of a person because if this is done wrong, it could totally ruin the entire city government," City Manager Harry Black said.

Ultimately council directed the city clerk's office to provide a recommendation on a set of criteria for members of the citizen advisory board and timeline at a future meeting. Council will wait for that board's recommendation before acting.

The process may take a year to complete.

Record reporter Hannah Workman covers news in Stockton and San Joaquin County. She can be reached at hworkman@recordnet.com or on Twitter @byhannahworkman. Support local news, subscribe to The Stockton Record at https://www.recordnet.com/subscribenow.

This article originally appeared on The Record: Stockton 'out of compliance' with city charter, council looks to make changes