Cape Coral voters decide three proposed city charter amendments in the Aug. 18 Primary \u2013 mayor pro tem, eligibility and proof of residency.<\/p>\n
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Cape Coral City Council moved all three forward Wednesday.<\/p>\n
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The referendum related to the position of mayor pro tem is mostly a housekeeping measure, clarifying when council needs to make its appointment following an election. The official ballot referendum language will state: \u201cThis proposal amends the Cape Coral City Charter to clarify that the election of the mayor pro tem shall be by the majority vote of the City Council to be held at the first regular council meeting following each City General Election. <\/p>\n
\u201cShall the above described amendment to the Charter be adopted?\u201d <\/p>\n
Voters will vote yes or no.<\/p>\n
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City Attorney Aleksandr Boksner said there have been no further modifications since the first minor one when the ordinance was first introduced.<\/p>\n
\u2028\u201dIt\u2019s scheduled to go before the Aug. 18 Primary for approval by the electorate,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
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The second referendum addresses eligibility in the city\u2019s charter. <\/p>\n
The official\u00a0 ballot language will state: \u201cThis proposal amends the Cape Coral City Charter to require any council member candidate be a continuous permanent resident of the district for the entire calendar year immediately preceding their qualification for office, excluding candidates impacted by Section 4.04 of the city charter and establishing procedures for complying with the residency requirement for a candidate\u2019s permanent legal residency and domicile within the district and city pursuant to the submission of a sworn statement.<\/p>\n
\u201cShall the above described amendment to the Charter be adopted?\u201d <\/p>\n
Voters will vote yes or no.<\/p>\n
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The second ordinance received one public comment during the public hearing from Julia Ettari, who questioned the residency requirement. She said sometimes people build a house and have permit issues but may have lived in the city for 10 years and want to run for office.<\/p>\n
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\u201cWe have enough trouble getting good people up here. We shouldn\u2019t be limiting other people running for office that may be more qualified for the seat,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
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Councilmember Bill Steinke said they made a decision as a council to allow the topic to go before the general public to determine if they oppose the restriction. He said the public can vote rather than not have it on the ballot as a potential referendum item.<\/p>\n
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The third referendum also addresses candidate qualifications and election.<\/p>\n
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The official ballot language states \u201cThis proposal amends the Cape Coral City Charter to require eligible candidates for the office of mayor or council member to submit a sworn statement identifying their permanent legal residency and domicile, affirming that the candidate meets the residency requirements of Section 4.02 of the city\u2019s charter, and submission of two documents establishing proof of residency pursuant to those acceptable documents set forth within new section 4.05(c)(2) of the city\u2019s charter.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cShall the above described amendment to the Charter be adopted?\u201d <\/p>\n
Voters will vote yes or no.<\/p>\n
For city residents not yet registered to vote, the final date to register for the primary is July 20.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Cape Coral voters decide three proposed city charter amendments in the Aug. 18 Primary \u2013 mayor pro tem,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":206447,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[209,211,210],"class_list":["post-206446","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cape-coral","tag-cape-coral","tag-cape-coral-headlines","tag-cape-coral-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/206446","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=206446"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/206446\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/206447"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=206446"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=206446"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=206446"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}