Dying Longton, Part Ten; Charter Ordinance Review

[CCarl]

Charter Ordinance Review                         Copyright © MMXXII CCarl

This is an excerpt from the link below. "A charter ordinance is an ordinance which exempts a city from the whole, or any part, of any enactment of the legislature, as referred to in this section, and which may provide substitute and additional provisions on the same subject. Such charter ordinance shall be so titled, shall designate specifically the enactment of the legislature, or part thereof, made inapplicable to such city by the adoption of such ordinance, and contain the substitute and additional provisions, if any, and shall require a two-thirds vote of the members-elect of the governing body of such city." [The excerpt is edited with correct comma placement to make a run-on sentence readable, and understandable.]

Charter Ordinances were instituted as a means of local communities altering the State-wide decisions made by the Kansas legislature to fit the specific needs of the community. See here for Kansas Constitution Home Rule Article 12, Section 5:  http://www.kslegislature.org/li_2014/b2013_14/committees/misc/ctte_s_ethics_electns_1_20130211_02_other.pdf


Over the years the City of Longton has adopted eight Charter Ordinances. They are available to view in a three ring binder at City Hall. They may also be available electronically, or can be emailed at your request. They are listed below.

Charter Ordinance One:
It was adopted in 1986. It exempts Longton from KSA 79-5001 through 79-5017. It is still in effect. It says provisions under 5001-5017 do NOT apply to any taxes levied by Longton.

Charter Ordinance Two:
It was adopted in 1994. It exempts Longton from KSA 41-4112. It is replaced by an ordinary ordinance to provide for municipal court costs.

Charter Ordinance Three:
It was adopted in 1998, and later repealed by Charter Ordinance Seven. It dealt with Mayor and Council terms of office.

Charter Ordinance Four:
It was adopted in 2001. It exempts Longton from KSA 12-1220, a library fund ordinance.  This charter ordinance was later repealed by Ordinary Ordinance 3841.

Charter Ordinance Five:
It was adopted in 2003. It exempts Longton from provisions of KSA 12-1222. It establishes residency requirements for members of the library board.

Charter Ordinance Six:
It was adopted in 2004. It exempts Longton from KSA 13-1024a. It establishes improvements to the publicly administered portions of the City, and establishes methods of funding those improvements.

Charter Ordinance Seven:
It was adopted in 2016. It exempts Longton from KAS 15-201, regarding election of offices, filling vacancies, and nominating petitions. Charter Ordinance Seven establishes the governing body as a mayor and five council members, it establishes all election dates as the month of November, it establishes the election day as the Tuesday after the first Monday, and, if the mayor resigns or is recalled, it provides for the president of the council to replace the mayor until the next regular election for the mayoral position.

Charter Ordinance Eight:
It was adopted in 2017. It exempts Longton from KSA 15-204, and modifies the appointment date of city officials from May to January of each year.


That is all of the Charter Ordinances. So the City has done very little to vary from the whims of the State Legislature. That is not due to any apparent restrictive nature to the Charter Ordinance process, as far as I can tell. It is simply due to a lack of creativity on the part of City Council. And the residents of the town may be to blame for that, if very few people know what Charter Ordinances are, and how to be creative with them, there is little chance residents would implore Council into action.

In a future post, one I have tentatively labeled Post 18, I have in mind a way to use the Charter Ordinance process creatively, as a means of developing a grassroots economic base in this City. One that would be unique, and would create a large demand in the marketplace. Stay tuned.

Up next will be two posts, I think, on ordinary ordinances. They are in a big binder in City Hall that is available to look through. I do not know how many ordinances there are, but I did count eighty of them, since October 1961, that are still in place; they have not been repealed. I will not attempt to review every one of them, I'm going to cherry-pick through the binder and address the ones that I feel are inappropriate relative to property rights, or are a constraint on some resemblance of local economic recovery. There apparently is no record of ordinances prior to October 1961. What happened then? Was there a fire that destroyed records? If any reader is curious about an ordinance or a city regulation, comment here, and I will dig into it. Until then, to plagiarize my favorite web commentator, "Eyes wide open. No fear. Stay safe, everyone."