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Charter Talks Can't Get Past Square 1

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By KLINT LOWRY The Suncoast News

The Tampa Tribune

Published: September 13, 2008

PORT RICHEY - It didn't take long for a plan to update the city charter to prove its potential as a political minefield, as the city council found it impossible at its meeting Tuesday to get past square one, the selection of a charter review committee.

After nearly an hour of debate that was often contentious, Mayor Richard Rober and councilmen Phil Abts, Perry Bean, Mark Hashim and Steven O'Neill decided the best course of action would be to step back and do it again with a clearer set of ground rules.

The stage was set for Tuesday's disagreement when the council voted at its Aug. 29 meeting to go ahead with the formation of the charter review committee. Although there was consensus among the council that a charter review was a good idea, the vote was 3-2.

Rober and O'Neill cast the dissenting votes. Rober said at the time he voted against the resolution because he thought the council itself should serve as the committee.

Once the resolution passed, it was agreed the committee selections would be named at the Sept. 9 meeting. However, there was no decision on how those selections would be made. The resolution had included a recommendation that each council member would make one selection to the committee, with the remaining two positions selected by the council as a whole.

When it came time to address the issue Tuesday, Rober began to proceed on the assumption the process would be done as suggested in the resolution.

That assumption was short-lived.

No sooner did Rober mention the process than Abts raised objections to it.

"I think it should be a majority vote," Abts said. "I think we should interview these people, to find out their qualifications, more than just, 'I want to pick Joe Blow because he's politically involved' or something."

Bean also didn't like the idea of each council member picking a committee member.

"My goal for this committee is for it to be efficient, for it to be composed of people of a similar mind so they can get right to work and get things done," Bean said.

"To be brutally honest, there are certain people in this community I would just strenuously object to being on this committee. There are some people out in the community who are more interested in the city's failure at this point than in the city's success."

As he was Aug. 29, O'Neill was on the same side of the issue as Rober, favoring going ahead with the selection process as outlined. He pointed out that safeguards are built in to the resolution to prevent a dysfunctional committee from running amok, including the council's authority to remove members from the committee at any time.

"That's pretty straight up, isn't it?" O'Neill said.

Though he ultimately leaned toward Abts' and Bean's point of view, Hashim initially emphasized the ultimate goal was to seat the best possible people on the committee and to get the project rolling.
Abts made a motion to postpone the selection process, but no one seconded the motion. When Rober then asked him for his choice to serve on the committee, Abts claimed he wasn't prepared, that if he had to name a committee member he would give it to any resident in the room who wanted it.

Naming their individual choices only spurred the debate, as council members objected to one another's choices. O'Neill's choice, former City Attorney James Mathieu, whom the council fired April 22, drew the most fire. While Bean was describing Mathieu as being "openly hostile" to the current city administration, Abts collected his belongings and walked out of council chambers. He returned several minutes later.

Later, Hashim broke from the conciliatory tone he'd taken most of the night and made a motion to remove Mathieu from the committee, quickly seconded by Bean. City Attorney Michael Brannigan pointed out that since Mathieu had not accepted the position, it might be premature to propose removing him from a committee he was not formally a part of.

With that, Hashim made a formal motion to go with the idea that Abts had introduced and had been slowly pushed along throughout the debate, to have all interested candidates be selected by the council as a whole, based on interviews and a written questionnaire.

"My desire to bring up this motion is to calm the situation," Hashim said. "In all fairness, this is an extremely important decision. I have no doubt about that. I know you each and every one of you have no doubt about this, and that's a good thing."

A date for the interviews was not set.

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