City Council unanimously withdrew 13 proposed referendum ordinances recommended by the Charter Review Commission after determining the commission failed to meet a deadline required under the city\u2019s home rule charter.<\/p>\n
The action Monday at council\u2019s regular meeting removes a series of charter amendment questions introduced at council\u2019s June 8 meeting for possible placement on the November ballot.<\/p>\n
The proposals addressed topics ranging from the creation of a city health department to ethics board changes, limits on board and commission service, police leadership, environmental rights and other governance issues.<\/p>\n
Council voted to withdraw the measures due to the failure of the commission to timely issue its report within six months of appointment as required by the city charter.<\/p>\n
Council Solicitor Michael Gombar said the vote permanently removes the measures from consideration.<\/p>\n
Under the city\u2019s home rule charter, an 11-member Charter Review Commission must be appointed at least every five years, but no sooner than every three years.<\/p>\n
The commission is required to review the charter and submit a report to council, the mayor and residents within six months of its appointment.<\/p>\n
The city\u2019s most recent commission was appointed in September 2024, with members officially seated and beginning their work in August 2025.<\/p>\n
The charter states that council and the mayor must place proposed amendments on the ballot by ordinance, but officials said that obligation no longer applied because the commission missed the deadline.<\/p>\n
Council\u2019s vote to withdraw the proposals came after weeks of questions about the timing and legality of the proposed referendums.<\/p>\n
Charter Review Commission Solicitor Ed Stock did not immediately responded to a request for additional comment on the legal issues surrounding the proposed referendums.<\/p>\n
Council recessed during its June 22 committee of the whole meeting and met in executive session to discuss the matter.<\/p>\n
Speaking Monday before the vote, Councilman Raymond Baker said the issue ultimately came down to the commission\u2019s failure to comply with requirements established in the charter.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are deadlines, there are rules and laws that must be followed,\u201d Baker said.<\/p>\n
During public comment at Monday\u2019s regular meeting, Evelyn Morrison, commission chair, criticized council\u2019s concerns over the referendum questions and argued that voters should have the opportunity to decide the proposed changes.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it\u2019s up to them to decide how they want to, if they want to, change their government in any kind of way,\u201d Morrison said.<\/p>\n
Morrison also said commission members had invited council members to attend their meetings and offer feedback on the proposals.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou had an opportunity to refer for your constituents, but you chose not to,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
In an interview last week, City Managing Director Jack Gombach said the commission\u2019s role was to request that referendum questions be placed on the ballot and that the matter must then move through council before reaching county election officials.<\/p>\n
City administrators, he said, had raised questions about several of the proposed charter amendments, particularly a referendum that, if passed, would have created a municipal health department.<\/p>\n
Gombach said Reading was studying how such departments operate in other Pennsylvania communities. Relatively few municipalities maintain their own health departments, he said, noting state regulations require a range of services that the city does not provide and that could carry significant financial and operational implications.<\/p>\n
With Monday\u2019s vote, the 13 proposed charter amendments will not appear on the November ballot.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"City Council unanimously withdrew 13 proposed referendum ordinances recommended by the Charter Review Commission after determining the commission…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1767,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[349,857,182,139,28,736,128,130,129,706],"class_list":["post-226821","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-reading","tag-berks-county","tag-essential-reading","tag-local-news","tag-news","tag-pennsylvania","tag-reading","tag-reading-city","tag-reading-city-headlines","tag-reading-city-news","tag-top-stories-reg"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/226821","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=226821"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/226821\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1767"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=226821"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=226821"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=226821"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}