The Arlington City Council held a special meeting on November 12, 2024, in the Council Briefing Room at 101 W. Abram Street. The meeting began with an executive session at 1:03 PM, lasting until 2:46 PM, followed by an open session reconvened at 3:33 PM and adjourned at 4:27 PM. Discussions focused on proposed charter amendments for the May 2025 election, updates on the Commercial Signage Improvement Program, a proposed ordinance targeting unfinished structures, and other administrative items. No formal votes were taken; the meeting served as a work session for council deliberation.
Okay. And we're gonna go into a closed executive session. Something with those wisdom teeth out. Good afternoon. We're gonna go ahead and call the afternoon session of the city council back to order. Let's see where we left off. Ms. Shorthall Oh, that's right. I was you just talked to me about this. So Mayor, I wanted to make one quick um introduction today. And I'm sorry, Miss Boxhall stepped out for just a second because it was really done for mostly for her attention, but she'll be right back, I'm sure. Here she comes. So Miss Boxall had contacted me a week or two ago and said that she had come up on an accident that occurred down on Center Street and near Mitchell, kind of just south of the College Park Center, and that she'd observed one of our employees doing something really, really helpful after that accident. A car had flipped over and was on its on its side or roof and had and then one of our employee cars came in and blocked blocked area so that no further accident could happen while people got out to assist. So we were trying to figure out you know who uh who that person was. So I want to introduce to y'all real quick. Actually, one of our newer employees. Uh his name is Jacob Haime. And if you can stand up, Jacob. He's one of our landscape techs, works in our parks and recreation department and is helping uh work on forestry and beautification. And on this day, he came across this accident and went outside his job scope and helped out somebody who had some need. So I told Ms. Boxhall we'd find who it was, and we'd uh we'd let him know we appreciated his efforts and told him to come on up here for a quick introduction, and um, here's who helped us out that day. So welcome. Okay, Ms. Shortall, now we're gonna go to you. Okay. Um council's request, we're bringing to you a discussion that municipal policy committee's been having over the past couple meetings on a potential charter amendment election. So I want to start with just a little bit of a primer on the charter with a little bit of a history lesson. So in 1912, Texas voters approved uh an amendment to the Texas Constitution that authorized cities to adopt a home rule charter. Prior to 1912, Texas just had one type of city, and we'll talk about the difference here in a minute: general law cities. So in 1912, cities with a population of 5,000 or more were able to bring forward a charter and um become a chartered home rule city. Got some bolded language here from that amendment, and it just notes that a charter can't be amended more often or then every two years. So shortly after that, about eight years later, uh the voters of Arlington approved the city of Arlington's home rule charter at an election held in 1920. So as I mentioned, currently two types of cities in Texas, they're general law cities and home rule cities. The distinction here is that general law cities have to look to the state legislature to determine their powers, so they look to the state to grant them those powers. Whereas home rule cities look to the legislature not for that grant of power, but for the limitations on their power. So preempted subject matters or areas of regulation. Well, uh home rule charter is basically the city's constitution. It's the fundamental law of the home rule city, broadly frames the powers of the city, talks about how the government of the city is structured. Is it a council mayor form of government? Or like the city of Arlington, is it a council manager form of government? Arlington's charter specifically lays out that we are a council manager form of government. The mayor and council act as the legislative body and appoint the city manager who serves as the chief executive officer of the city. And then I note here that charter amendments, as I mentioned previously, charter can be amended every two years, but that has to be approved by the voters. So charter can only be changed by approval of the voters. And that can either happen through petition, so voters bringing forward a petition requesting a change to the charter, or through an amendment that's initiated by the council. So calling an election to amend certain provisions in the charter. So high-level overview of what's currently included in the city of Arlington's charter. This is kind of the table of content.