Gardens to fix rejected questions
City trying again after judge rejected ballot language last month.
PALM BEACH GARDENS — Palm Beach Gardens voters may have a sense of deja vu come August when they see similar questions on their ballots to those that appeared in March.
The city is revisiting proposed changes to term limits and the city charter that a judge tossed from the March ballot. The judge determined the questions were misleading after the ballots had been printed, and votes cast for them did not count.
City Attorney Max Lohman drafted anew three separate questions about term limits, the city charter and a residency requirement for the city manager. The new questions explain the proposed changes in greater detail than the rejected ones.
As in March, they will not appear on a November ballot, when turnout is highest. The city has scheduled them to go before voters on Aug. 28.
The City Council advanced the three questions during a special meeting Thursday night after a civil discussion, free of the rancorous debate that characterized past discussions of term limits.
The first question will ask voters if council members should be allowed to serve three, uninterrupted three-year terms — a total of nine years — instead of two three-year terms or a total of six years. Voters passed term limits in 2014 after some council members stayed in office for more than two decades.
Councilman Matt Lane cast the lone dissenting vote, repeating an earlier call to switch to two, four-year terms. Such a change would let council members work more and campaign less, he said.
Mayor Maria Marino said voters are accustomed to three, threeyear terms, so it would be to voters’ benefit to keep the length of the term the same.
Councilman Mark Marciano said while he didn’t disagree with Lane, the city has had three-year terms for a long time, and people seem happy with terms of either three or four years.
The second question will ask voters to replace the city charter, which sets out the basic format of city government in the same
way a constitution sets out the form of national government. Many of the changes are technical to eliminate obsolete wording or to eliminate conflicts with state law.
Resident David Parks, who has written letters to the editor and made public comments critical of the council and the March ballot questions, spoke in favor of the proposed charter.
He said the proposed charter is clearer and he was pleased that it still requires that the city to review the charter every five years.
The third question will ask voters if a residency requirement for the city manager should be removed from the charter. Instead, the council would have discretion over whether to include a residency requirement in the manager’s contract.
Council members agreed they didn’t want to limit their options when the time comes to choose a new manager.
Councilwoman Rachelle Litt pointed out that someone can live on one side of the street and be in Palm Beach Gardens, while someone on the other side of the street could be outside the city.
“It’s all about effective leadership, and we want the best leader possible.”