Elk Grove City Council Decides to Shelve Charter

Voters to decide on direct election of mayor; charter chair delivers blistering rebuke to council


The Elk Grove City Council unanimously decided last night to delay the city charter process until an undetermined date. The council also decided the place an initiative on the ballot that would ask Elk Grove voters if they want to have a directly elected mayor.

The decision came after a year-and-a-half process where the Elk Grove City Charter Commission drafted a proposed charter that had become mired in several controversies that resulted in a series of claims and counter-claims. Although the charter commissioners had been appointed by the council, the two bodies frequently expressed frustration with one another during public meetings.

Last night’s meeting started with the formal presentation of the charter by commission chair Jake Allen. While Allen expressed appreciation for the support extended by city staffers in the charter drafting process, he said his time spent on the commission was a waste of time. (See video of Allen's presentation on second page of this post below.)

Allen said that he and fellow commissioners thought they were charged to independently write the charter and said if the council wanted to control the direction, they should have written it themselves. “You should not have allowed us to waste two years of our time,” he said.

Allen also addressed perhaps the most continuous issue of the process, prevailing wages. Calling labor groups “special interests,” Allen said they interfered with the process and the commission’s efforts to address the fiscal impact of prevailing wages.

During the public comment, the vast majority of speakers opposed the draft charter for a variety of reason ranging from the attempt to eliminate prevailing wages language to the improvement of city governance over the last few years.

One public speaker, former Elk Grove Planning Commissioner Tim Murphy, opposed the charter but for a different reason. “I urge to you reject any charter that will have prevailing wage language,” he said.

Concerted effort to circumvent prevailing wage laws



After public comment, Gary Davis was the first council member to speak and said the commission’s efforts to eliminate prevailing language from the charter were an attempt to circumvent state law.

“There was a concerted effort to circumvent prevailing wage laws,” Davis said.Davis went on to say the process had become highly politicized and proposed to shelve the charter. “We can put if off for a few years,” he said.

Vice Mayor Steve Detrick agreed the charter should be shelved saying the process would be costly. “Right now is not the time for this,” he said.

Calling the commission’s process “convoluted,” council member Pat Hume acknowledged that the charter commission’s efforts to address prevailing wages could have provided an opening to circumvent prevailing wages. Hume went on to say he opposed the charter as it could also have provided an opportunity to impose additional taxes.

Council member Jim Cooper also acknowledged the role prevailing wages had on the process. “It did get hijacked by the prevailing wage,” he said.

However Cooper said that he “100 percent” supported prevailing wages. “That helps people,” he said

Cooper said that some commissioners had own their own agendas. “There was a lot of game playing,” he added.

Mayor Sophia Scherman also weighed in on the prevailing wages topic when she verbally slipped and called prevailing wages minimum wages. “I like that better,” she said in reference to minimum wages.

Scherman went on to say that “I don’t think we need the prevailing language in the charter.”

After their deliberations, the council decided not to do anything with the charter this year and revisit the topic at some unspecified time in the future.

The council decided to address one topic addressed during the charter process – the direct election of the mayor. Under the city’s current general law charter, the city council selects the mayor on an annual basis.

The council unanimously directed city attorney Susan Cochran to report at the next meeting on whether the initiative asking voters if they want to directly elect a mayor needs to be on the June primary or November general election ballot.