Commissioner Fails to Eliminate Second Chiefland Board Meeting

By Terry Witt – Spotlight Senior Reporter

Chiefland City Commissioner Lewrissa Johns Monday proposed reducing the number of times the board meets every month from two to one meeting unless a second was needed, but the idea failed to gain any traction.

Commissioners Rollin Hudson, Lance Hayes, and Mayor Chris Jones favored continuing to meet two times a month to conduct city business and give residents an opportunity to bring forward their business.

The three commissioners were a majority of the board and since they didn’t want to reduce the number of meetings per month, the issue never came to a vote.

Under the city’s current code of ordinances, the city already has the option of canceling a meeting, but the option is usually implemented to avoid conflicts with holidays, not because there’s not enough business to discuss.

Johns felt the board sometimes meets even though there wasn’t much to talk about.

“Most of our surrounding commissions only do meet once a month. I think sometimes in our second meeting of the month we’re having to talk about one little small item and we’re gone – if we can kind of combine that into one,” she said.

A reporter reminded Johns that the three commissions and councils Spotlight covers, Williston, Bronson, and Chiefland, meet twice a month. She responded that she believes Trenton and Fanning Springs meet once a month.

Spotlight contacted Trenton and was told the city commission in Trenton meets twice a month on the first and third Mondays. Fanning Springs meets once a month on a Tuesday.

Jones led the opposition to Johns’ proposal to reduce the number of Chiefland City Commission meetings from two to one.

“I’m not in agreement. Even though it’s only two a month it gives a citizen an opportunity to come here even though they may not come often,” he said. “We can discuss any issue and bring anything to us that can be discussed. I don’t know of any meetings where we did not have an agenda. I’m not aware of one where we had no agenda to discuss.”

“Not no agenda, just one that (inaudible),” Johns said.

Hudson said he also wants to give citizens the ability to transact business with the city rather than waiting a month.

“Also, mayor, if we’re voting on someone that wants to rezone property, they don’t want to wait. They want stuff done,” Hudson said

“That’s what we said, if we got something to do, we’re definitely going to do it,” Johns responded.

Johns said if the city commission met only once a month commissioners wouldn’t be paid for a second meeting.

Resident Alice Monyei complained that the commission has refused on four occasions to consider reviewing the city charter. She believes the charter controls how often the commission meets. She said when there’s something specific the commission wants to change in the charter, they try to make that change.

City Attorney Blake Fugate pulled up the city’s code of ordinances on his phone and said the requirement for the city commission to meet twice a month is in an ordinance, not the charter, but he wasn’t able to pull up everything he needed to see due to City Hall internet problems.

City Manager Laura Cain said she would bring the current city charter back to the commission at its next meeting. The charter is only about five or six pages long.

Although the board has decided to keep two commission meetings every month, rather than reducing it to one, they could decide there are things in the charter that need to be changed.

Fugate said the board could read through the charter and figure out what needs to be changed, if anything, before they go through the process of appointing a charter review commission to make recommendations to the board.

Monyei said the charter hasn’t been reviewed since 1983 and changes are needed in the document that establishes how city government operates. She still believes there is something in the charter that spells out that the city commission must meet twice a month. She is a former city Chiefland city commissioner.

Cain said the charter hasn’t been reviewed since 1984.

The world has changed quite a bit since 1984 and 1983.