Committee proposes changes for City charter to Council

City Council received recommendations on Tuesday from an ad hoc committee on several potential changes to the city charter, including raising the salaries of the mayor and council by $10,000 and shifting city elections back to May.

The five member ad hoc charter advisory committee, led by chairman and former mayor Joe Wardy, held a total of six meetings around town with the public.

Wardy said the Northeast and West Side of town had the most people participate.

“The number one issue that was the most controversial was changing the elections back to May from November,” Wardy said.

In addition to recommending returning all city elections to May and boosting the mayor and council’s salary by $10,000, the committee also recommended that council have the power to cancel one regular meeting a month and that the mayor keep his veto power.

“There was a lot of discussion on this issue and a lot of input from the public,” Wardy said. “Probably this issue had the most input from the public.”

Recommending moving city elections from November to May had many on city council talking.

“If we moved those elections to November, we thought we’d have more voter participation,” Rep. Cortney Niland said.

“I would love to see more people vote, but fundamentally it really messes things up for local candidates to try and compete state and national politicians or candidates for office,” Wardy said. “That’s really a tough issue.”

It was recommending increasing the mayor’s salary from $45,000 to $55,000 and members of council from $29,000 to $39,000 that got the most interesting responses.

“I put in over 80 hours a week,” Mayor Oscar Leeser said, “and probably 80 or 90 percent of its at the city.”

“When all employees are given a pay raise,” Rep. Lily Limon said, “elected officials should be given a pay raise.”

“If you have a wife and two kids, you’re out, you can’t be city council,” Rep. Dr. Michiel Noe said, “either that or you would be living in your car.”

“It really doesn’t amount to much on the city budget,” Wardy added. “But could we get more people involved in the process that care about this city? Absolutely.”

While council will ultimately decide next month which items end up on a ballot, El Pasoans will ultimately decide at the polls, likely in November, which changes to the charter will be adopted.