All right, we will call committee of the whole to order.

I know Councilman Evans said he was going to be running a little behind, so we expect him to join us.

Okay, so we made we um we made those changes right of in the committee of the whole notes thing.

Yeah, I see okay, yeah.

All right, Daniel's giving me a nod.

So all right, so first I will move um to approve the sorry I'm only my thing as I'm doing making the motion, which is not the best way to do it.

Move to approve the minutes of the July 7th committee of the whole meeting.

Second.

Motion's been made and seconded.

Any discussion?

Hearing none, all those in favor, aye, and that motion passes.

Um then I'll move to approve the minutes of the July 14th meeting without the necessity of a reading.

Second.

Motion's been made and seconded.

Any discussion?

Hearing none.

All those in favor, aye, and that motion passes.

Okay, so uh now on to the main business, which is um we have the report from the charter review commission.

We started talking about this um previous committee of the whole meeting, and uh the law department to start drafting some of those recommendations, um, which believe you all received via email.

Um as we're working through that, um I uh in some of our conversation last week.

Um so just as a reminder, some of the ones that we're talking about.

So that would be the um that's okay.

There's uh a recommendation for a charter amendment regarding salaries, um, regarding the vacancy process, regarding ranked choice voting, uh regarding redistricting of the wards, and also um the enactment of ordinances and resolutions, which is a very sort of minor one uh regarding not having to reduct um remove the entire chapter and replace it essentially.

So uh with each of those last uh committee of the whole, when we were talking about the charter, we're mostly talked about ranked choice voting and what it is, how it works, and how it could work for Lake Wood.

Um but in so we also talked about last time that if we wanted to get these on this November's ballot, they would need to be either docketed at tonight's full council meeting it in order and then we'd have to have committee meetings for them to have the three readings and be passed at the first meeting in September.

So you'll note that on the full council docket, they did not submit them for the docket, and part of that is because um I felt like we still had more work to do on these and conversation to be had before they're ready for prime time, and I didn't want to put something out there as we're we're getting ready to change our highest level uh doc document for the land without actually being prepared to do that.

So um so I wanted to come back to tonight to talk a little bit about process.

Um my feeling is uh that we continue to work on these um this this next uh throughout the fall this next year um and we try to get them on the ballot for the 2026 um election cycle.

And one of there's a few reasons for that.

One is that um most of these are related to the ones that are related to municipal elections, if they're on the 2026 ballot or the 2025 ballot, we regardless, they won't wouldn't affect things until the 2027 municipal elections, so it doesn't essentially do any harm um to have more time to uh work on these as well as to potentially educate the pod public.

Should we move forward with something um like ranked choice voting, which I think a lot of folks would have questions about, that gives more time for us to have those conversations with the public.

Um and regardless whether it did it this year or in 2026 wouldn't affect things until the 2027 municipal election.

Um and some of the questions like Councilmember Bullock mentioned about which um ranked choice voting system we would use, some of those other questions as well as what's happening in the State House, we would potentially have answered by then.

Um some of the other ones regarding uh the ward redistricting is the way it uh was referred by the charter review commission is said to take place after the um next census.

So again, whether we do it in 2025 or 2026, it doesn't really change that either.

Um so I'll pause there and uh and allow other folks to chime in with their thoughts.

Because your point's uh uh councilman stubborn.

Thank you.

I think that makes a lot of sense to me.

Um there's no real rush to to get this done.

A lot of the stuff really needs to go uh be gone over and over again.

Um other than um the manner of amend amending legislation, which I thought sounded like tossing T's and dotting I's I don't know if there'd be a lot there, so maybe that might be a low-hanging fruit if if we wanted to move on anything sooner than later.

But yeah, I think that that's a great idea.

Thank you.

Uh Councilperson Hamilton Steiner.

Thank you, President Kappel.

Um, yes, I I agree with um with everything that you're saying.

It may it makes sense.

It's better to get it right um than to get something for to voters and then have to do the work of educating for educating voters, informing voters, um, aside from the ring truth voting, just what they're gonna be voting on and what this means.

Um so and we want to give them time to digest everything um and what because we're we're changing our our city's document and how we operate.

So we definitely want to make sure that there they have plenty of time to digest everything.

Um so I do have just a couple of questions.

Um would it be in the May election or would it be a November 2026 election that we would potentially put this forward to voters and then I have second questions?

I don't know if you want to answer that first, and then I can come back to my other question.

I mean, we we would have time to do either.

Um I guess I would lean towards in my and I I could be convinced otherwise, but it seems to me that it's the most democratic to do it when there are the most voters, which would likely be the November um election.

But that's unless other people have strong feelings, but that make would make sense to me.

Yeah, just to that narrow point, yeah.

I think it makes sense to have it in November, although I whenever the primary is that also has but I think you generally get more voters in a November election, so and it'll be um midterm year.

So I think you probably want more people and more people aware that something is on the belt.