A sign points to a polling place at Austin City Hall earlier this year. The Nov. 3 ballot includes several proposed changes to the city charter, essentially the constitution for the city.
Sara Diggins/Austin American-Statesman
Near the end of a long general election ballot — between the $295 million bond package and the controversial city audit proposal — Austin voters will find an alphabet soup of lesser-known ballot propositions.
All are amendments to the city charter, essentially the constitution for the city. The proposed changes are fairly technical, but they would affect the way City Hall does business.
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Here are our recommendations:
Proposition C: Recommended FOR
This common-sense measure clarifies procedures for the Independent Citizens Redistricting Commission, the panel that draws the boundaries for Austin’s 10 City Council districts.
Prop C allows the redistricting commission to review the maps if an area is annexed or disannexed. The measure also allows for a larger pool of applicants to be considered for the panel and clarifies the process for filling vacancies.
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READ MORE: Statesman Editorial Board Texas General Election Recommendations
Proposition D: Recommended FOR
On paper, the Austin City Council is required to meet at least once a week. In reality, council meetings are often two weeks apart, except when the council takes its month-long summer break. Other meetings are added as needed.
Prop D would strike the outdated charter language that requires weekly council meetings, a relic the council has been scheduling around for years. This is a reasonable change.
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Proposition E: Recommended AGAINST
The mechanics of how City Council meetings must run — how issues are added to the agenda, how long the public can speak — are spelled out in an ordinance approved by the council.
The charter requires Austin to have such an ordinance. Prop E would strike that requirement, allowing the council to change its rules through a simple majority vote without going through an ordinance process.
That might sound minor. But two years ago, when Mayor Kirk Watson announced a new policy limiting speakers’ time on certain agenda items, the courts blocked him because the change wasn’t made through an ordinance.
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An ordinance provides extra clarity and predictability to the public because the rules can’t be changed on a whim. An ordinance can be revised only after the change is publicly posted and people have an opportunity to weigh in, ensuring the community can see what’s happening.
Public meetings are too important for the rules to be set any other way.
ALSO READ: How we reach our endorsements — and why your vote is yours
Proposition F: Recommended FOR
This sensible measure clarifies how candidate contribution and spending rules apply to different types of elections, such as the general election or a runoff. Under Prop F, any changes to those campaign finance provisions would need to be adopted by Jan. 1 of a given year, rather than during the city budget cycle, which usually culminates in August.
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Proposition G: Recommended AGAINST
Petitioning the government is a core right. In Austin, that includes the right to gather enough signatures to put a proposed ordinance on the ballot so voters can decide the issue directly.
The city charter requires such ballot initiatives to go before voters “on the next statutorily-allowable election date.” Prop G would strike that wording and delay the vote until the next November election in an even-numbered year.
We recognize the appeal of deciding issues during the presidential and midterm elections that see the greatest voter turnout. But if a policy question is important enough to draw signatures from more than 20,000 voters, Austinites deserve to have it promptly decided.
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For example, had Prop G been in effect a few years ago, the vote to reinstate Austin’s homeless camping ban wouldn’t have been held in May 2021 — it would have happened 19 months later, in November 2022.
Proposition H: Recommended FOR
In about three-quarters of Texas home-rule cities, the city attorney reports directly to the City Council, which has the power to hire and fire that person. Not in Austin, where the city attorney answers to the city manager.
Prop H would change that, creating a direct line of communication and accountability between the city attorney and the City Council. We see that as a net gain. Council members create local laws; they should have access to the person who might need to defend those measures.
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Proposition J: Recommended FOR
This standard housekeeping measure would allow the city to clean up any typos or grammatical errors in the charter, as well as remove any passages that have been “superseded by state law or by a final court order.”