WDET News
- City Council Says NO to Charter Revision
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Nov 18, 2008General
Detroit’s City Council President says keeping the city charter revision question off the ballot allows voters to have a voice.
Council President Monica Conyers says voting "no" protects the public’s right to speak before the Council about their visions for the city charter.
“You can have a town hall meeting and ask them what would you like. You could have a committee of the whole meeting… none of which was asked. We had a discussion here and we were told we could have amendments as opposed to a revision. And basically, I just think it was self-serving.”
Conyers says amendment… not a charter revision by an outside commission… is the appropriate method to fix the problems in Detroit’s governing document.
Councilmember Kwame Kenyatta says Conyers is wrong. He says the kinds of amendments needed to fix structural problems… like removal procedure; the role of the corporation counsel and issues with the police commission… would be illegal without a revision approved by the voters.
Kenyatta accuses council members who defeated the resolution of being self-serving. He says their concerns are for re-election… since a commission could write a new charter calling for city council representation by district instead of at-large.
There’s no word at this time if the city council will reconsider the charter revision issue in the future.