The gist
Introduced by District 5 council member Teri Castillo, District 7 council member Marina Alderete Gavito, District 9 council member Misty Spears and District 10 council member Marc Whyte, the amended process will ensure that CCRs are not treated differently when a new council takes over, and that they will continue through the Governance Committee.
The amendment clarifies that:
- Any CCR that is not currently in the committee process should proceed to the Governance Committee within 60 days of filing or by the second scheduled Governance Committee meeting.
- If a CCR is already in committee at the time a new council takes its place, then the CCR should continue through the committee process.
Spears argued against the new amendment, stating that CCRs give voters a voice, and allowing the requests to fall by the wayside ignores voters’ will.
"I think that council members were elected to represent our constituents, and so these CCRS are not just ideas,” Spears said. “They are the actual voices of the people that we represent and who elect us, and those voices shouldn't be filtered, stifled, delayed, regardless of who's sitting in the seat."
Whyte argued that allowing previous council members’ CCRs to move forward ensured that their hard work would not go to waste.
“Let's take councilwoman Castillo or councilwoman Viagran, they get to their last year here, before they term out, they've got eight months to go,” Whyte said. “They come up with a great idea, they get the signatures for a CCR, and it's moving forward, but it takes a while, then they term out, and all that work for eight months we're going to go back to [square one].”
Mayor Gina Ortiz Jones supported Mungia’s amendment and argued that allowing CCRs from a previous council to move forward doesn’t account for current voters’ positions.
“To the [point that] it's a great idea that came in at the end, if it's a great idea [then] it'll still be a great idea,” Jones said. “It just has to get support from the most recent voters.”
Mungia’s amendment failed 8-2, with District 1 council member Sukh Kaur, District 2 council member Leo Castillo-Anguiano, District 3 council member Phyllius Viagran, District 6 council member Ric Galvan, District 8 council member Ivalis Meza Gonzalez, Castillo, Gavito, Spears and Whyte voting against. The original amendment passed 8-2, with Jones and Mungia voting against.
Stay tuned
City Manager Erik Walsh said that there are currently 32 active CCRs in the queue and that city staff would create a menu to help council members gain a better understanding of these CCRs and their place in the process.
