So all right, so we will bring committee of the whole to order.

All right.

So I will first move to approve the minutes of the May 18th meeting without the necessity of reading.

Second.

Motions were made and seconded.

Any discussion?

Hearing none.

All those in favor?

Aye.

And that motion passed.

And I'll just note without objection, I'll excuse the absence of Councilmember Hamilton Steiner who has recused herself from discussion of commit of the charter review amendments having served on the Charter Review Commission out of abundance of caution.

So she will not be joining us this evening for committee of the whole.

Okay, so we have uh several items for charter review commission, um, the charter review amendments.

Um perhaps overly ambitious hope is that we may be able to finalize these tonight.

Um as you'll recall, the deadline to get things on the November docket is the very beginning of September.

We are now in the second full meeting of June, which means we only have the two full council meetings in July unless we call a special meeting to get these done before we go on recess.

So that is my hope.

Um and also, so just to go through kind of what we have before us a little bit.

Um we have two versions of the ranked choice voting um two possibilities of the ranked choice voting topic.

Then we have um ordinance 17 2026, which is to fill council vacancies, ordinance 16 2026, which is salaries, um salaries of elected officials, and then the ordinance 19 2026, um, which is redistricting.

So the ordinance 16 and 17 have components in them that are um connected to ranked choice voting in that language in them uh ties to a primary, which could be eliminated were ranked choice voting adopted.

So um earlier uh today, just maybe about an hour ago, um, sent you all uh another uh potential substitutes for the three those three pieces.

Um so I worked with the law department on going through these with the idea that whether or not ranked choice voting were to be adopted now or never or in the future, that the language of ordinance 16 and 17, which tie which as written currently tied to a primary, um would not need to be revisited, so that they would still work as written whether or not ranked choice voting were enacted.

Um we could and then in ordinance 19, well we'll we'll just maybe start with those two.

Um and then I'll pause there and just say um as regards trained choice voting, we've had quite a few conversations about it over several council meetings.

Um at our last committee of the whole, uh the concept came up that we um, as we said, we have the two ordinances that address in two different ways the way that Charter Review Commission recommended, which would, if passed, would give council the authority to adopt ranked choice voting by ordinance or resolution, um which potentially gives flexibility but puts us at risk of being uh in violation of SB63 and losing funding.

And then the other option is to have it directly adopted um by the voters potentially and put into the charter uh with a severability clause.

Um we haven't dug a great deal into how that severability clause may or may not work.

Um there is still the possibility that because um SB 63 was passed by the legislature that even if it is currently not in violation of SB 63, the legislature could change that.

And then we also have the elections in this coming November, which one way or the other will lead to a new Secretary of State, um, and we'll also potentially change the makeup of the legislature.

So with all that, um some of the my thought process at this time is to pause on the ranked choice voting um and come back to it uh after we see what happens in the November election.

And part of that I believe very firmly in ranked choice voting.

I think it's an excellent uh tool um for democracy and and makes uh you know there's a there's a great deal of potential with ranked choice voting.

The potential for um removing primaries makes reduces barriers of cost to entry.

Um it could put more uh voices potentially in the mix.

Um but at this time I think it would be very confusing to voters if we put the version that puts the option before council and then puts council in the position of having choosing between risking our funding and doing what our voters have asked us to do um rather than the legislature who should be the one answering to the voters.

So with that I'll pause um if anyone else wants to make comments regarding ranked choice voting.

Vice President Baker.

Uh thank you.

For first, just th thank you in the law department.

Um but I know you uh from the our body has been the one kind of leading all of these things, so I appreciate all the time and effort.

It doesn't go unnoticed.

Um I'll say on on ranked choice voting.

I'm of a like mind of view in the sense that I think it um I top line when I explain this to residents that I see what why ranked choice voting.

We have a primary, no one votes in it.

It's expensive.

Uh so for me, the the Lakewood reason for ranked choice voting is that, right?

Um now I think that there are other benefits uh beyond that, which the council president laid out.

And I want to do it.

I want Lakewood to do ranked choice voting.

I'm upset that the state legislator has continued to erode our home rule authority and what's more home rule than the being able to govern how your locally elected officials are elected.

Um but uh be that it is may, I don't take the world as I wanted, I take the world as it is.

Um and therefore I I tend to agree that if we go before the voters and say, hey, this charter amendment allows us to do ranked choice voting, and they're like, well, why the heck aren't we doing ranked choice voting?

Um I can understand why folks would be both confused and maybe upset.

Um and then the other one that kind of has a a backdoor out if they determine that we don't get our municipal funding.

I think that puts us in a position of still litigating uh in some ways uh because as the law department has pointed out, it's kind of an administrative function giving us local government funds.

It's it's uh as we discovered with the cannabis funds, you know, if the governor at the time so there's an interplay of a lot of different state offices here.

One is the Secretary of State's determination of this issue, which is essentially an administrative or agency rule where they're saying at least for this current SB 63, whatever it is, that if it's by charter, it's okay.

The council president's point, new Secretary of State could change that determination.

Uh but then you also have the governor's office that actually oversees the offset of of Office of Budget Management that cuts the checks, right?