Editor’s note: This report first appeared in the Oviedo Community News.
Oviedo residents will weigh in on four proposed charter amendments in the November election, including a renewed effort to eliminate off-year city elections.
After holding a public hearing and voting to approve the measures, the Oviedo City Council agreed to place the amendments on the November ballot. Each proposal would directly affect the council members themselves.
The proposed amendments include:
The measure dealing with special elections was approved unanimously and without debate. The other three proposals passed by 4-1 margins, with Council Member Alan Ott casting the only dissenting vote in each case.
The recommendations came from the city’s 15-member Charter Review Committee, which met seven times over a four-month period to evaluate and decide on the amendments.
“We came to the [four] amendments with a unanimous understanding and consensus of the entire committee,” CRC member Lou Klinker wrote in a Facebook comment in response to OCN’s post about the then-upcoming public hearing.
The Oviedo City Charter is the city’s foundational document, the equivalent of a local constitution. It spells out the powers and roles of the government.
Council terms
If approved in November, a staggered transition from councilmembers serving two-year to four-year terms would begin in 2027. The two councilmembers (including the mayor) up for reelection that year would each have a three-year term to align them with the 2030 election. Once they get to 2030, those seats would have four-year terms going forward. The three councilmembers up for election in 2028 would have four-year terms from that point onward.
“The purpose of this, or the end result of it being to transition to an election cycle that coincides with the even-year presidential and gubernatorial elections,” Oviedo City Attorney Wade Vose, who served as the CRC facilitator, said at the City Council’s May 27 work session.
This change has previously gone to the voters a number of times — most recently in 2021, albeit with different ballot language — and has consistently been rejected. Oviedo pays the cost of off-year elections, which can cost about $45,000 to administer.
Moving the elections to coincide with presidential and gubernatorial elections would most likely bring out higher turnout — the 2024 election saw almost 20,000 ballots cast for the then-open seat, while the 2023 off-year mayoral election had fewer than 8,000.
“I may not agree with all of these [amendments], but it is not my place to prevent voters from choosing their form of governance,” Oviedo Mayor Megan Sladek said. “So, on they go.”
Councilmember Alan Ott, however, disagreed.
“Yes it is [Council’s place], Madam Mayor,” he said. “The state statute says that charter amendments are made by referendum, called by ordinances of the governing body. We are the governing body, and that power is vested in the Oviedo City Council. The state statute does not mention charter review committees.
“We created a charter review committee to give us advice as to what things we might put to an ordinance,” he said. “A delegation of that authority is an abdication of our responsibility.”
“I completely disagree,” Deputy Mayor Natalie Teuchert said. “This is one of the few things that comes through Council that affects Council, so I think if we even put our hands on it it could be taken as being in our own best interest, and I think that’s why we kind of give that to a council of citizens to come up with how they want their City Council to operate.”
The Oviedo Charter “states that at least once every [5] years, the City Council shall appoint a Charter Review Committee to recommend additions, deletions, or changes to the City Council for consideration,” according to the City of Oviedo’s Charter Review FAQs page.
Voting procedure change
An amendment to remove the roll-call vote requirement for City Council votes brought out a concern by one Oviedo resident.
“This particular section kind of goes against the code of knowing who’s voting which way,” Charles Zuber said during the public comment portion of the hearing. “If you all are up there saying ‘aye’ together, or ‘nay’ … you don’t really know who’s doing what, so come voting time, I don’t have that selection to find out who I need to vote out or vote in for what you’re passing.”
If the amendment is passed by voters, councilmembers would still have to have their votes recorded and be on record, but they would not need to be done in sequential, roll-call order.
“A number of folks [on the CRC] were indicating a thought that a roll-call requirement can sometimes lend itself to gamesmanship in the idea of folks waiting to see how other people will vote and then making their decisions accordingly,” Vose said.
If, for example, a member of the City Council is opposed to an item, but sees that it already has three yes votes, they might vote in favor of it anyway. That’s because a member voting in the affirmative on a measure is allowed to bring it back up for discussion, while a member who lost a vote can’t.
“A Motion to Reconsider can be made by a councilmember on the prevailing side of a decision to request that the City Council reconsider the decision during the same meeting at which the decision was made,” wrote the Oviedo City Clerk’s office. “A request to rescind must be made at the next meeting and it can be made by any of the council.”
Qualifying period for City Council
If approved, the qualifying period for running for City Council would move from its current deadline of August of an election year to June.
“One of the points of discussion on this was basically for greater awareness for potential candidates,” Vose said. “The discussion with regard to [the] amendment was, among other things, the thought that putting it at or around the same time as other offices’ qualifying for elections may provide greater public notice or notoriety about the idea that folks can run for elections.”
Ott, however, expressed issues with the wording of the amendment as well as the substance.
“Moving qualifying up to be equivalent to where the county has it … that is way too early for us,” Ott said. “The county has it early because they have either a primary election in August, which we do not, or they have their main election in August and their runoff in November. Either way, their qualifying is earlier because their election is earlier.
“If we move our qualifying this much earlier, we’re going to have an even longer period between qualifying and election than the county does,” he said. “One of the things that does is that it favors incumbents, because incumbents are going to be more, kind of, tuned into the political process. And the other thing it does is it makes it so that … if the terms were to stay at two years, almost one-fourth of your term is served in a period where somebody cannot come to challenge you.”
By the qualification deadline, a potential candidate for Oviedo City Council needs to turn in at least 150 resident-signed petitions they have collected, pay a fee of 1% of the position’s annual salary and numerous required forms, including a financial disclosure.
