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Auburn City Council approved a revised City Charter at a final public hearing held at City Hall on Thursday night prior to a regular workshop session. A three-to-one vote left some citizens upset with the idea that council was able to make the decision without a referendum vote. Auburn Mayor Linda Blechinger told council members and citizens she was tired of defending the changes when it shouldn’t have been placed in the Charter to begin with.
"It was not legal to put in because it was never filed with the Secretary of State," said Blechinger. "Not only that but for us to have an opportunity right now to make right what was wrong; it was wrong to put it in the Charter and I am sorry to the citizens that voted on that and misunderstood it, but it was not the right thing to do and I’m sorry that that happened ... over 10 years ago," she said.
"We’ve had to spend months talking about this and trying to defend what the law tells us. The law tells us that ... We can’t put something in our Charter that supersedes Georgia State Law ... that’s just what this comes down to. We [Auburn] went outside even our own attorney to Georgia Municipal Association to their lead council and asked them to please give us an opinion on this and she said ‘you absolutely must strike this,’ ... they have nothing to do with this city. What I feel bad about is this has had to go on and on and it never should have been on the referendum to begin with. The referendum really was to reinstate the Police Department, that’s what people came out to vote on. I lived here during that time," Blechinger said.
"I remember it very well and the truth is that unfortunately, something was put on that referendum that should never have been put on there and to ask now for our citizens, our tax payers now, to go back and vote on something that we know is illegal is just incredulous," she said.Several citizens spoke out at the meeting against the way in which the amended charter was being handled, many of them stating that they feel a referendum should be held to allow the citizens to decide.
One citizen said she feels that this was the wrong way to go about things at this time.
"I know that certain protocol in the code of Georgia was followed as far as putting announcements in the paper ... however the summary that was placed in the Barrow County News ... did not state anything about the bond issue and I think for a lot of people this is a very serious issue. I think this is the most dangerous thing about the way this thing is proceeding," she said. "Simply because I know the Downtown Development Authority wants to make ... a lot of changes, and that’s a very noble thing to do. But, in order to do so ... and with the mayor also being head of that, it seems like there are no checks and balances."
"I’m not for or against the changes," said Chris Smither, Auburn citizen. "But the advertisement ... the City Charter is a pretty big deal. I heard by way of mouth through the neighborhood," he said. "And on pretty short notice."
City Attorney Jack Wilson recommended that the Council go forward with the vote because all the requirements of state law had been met.
"This document has been reviewed and recommended to the city by Northeast Georgia RDC, we’ve had input from attorneys of the Georgia Municipal Association ... the GMA lawyer... expressed the opinion that some of the particular referendum issues, as they relate to debts and public utilities, were of questionable validity ... in conflict with state law," Wilson said.
Wilson said the reason for the amendments was to bring the city into closer compliance with state law and hopefully eliminate some concerns. He also stressed that nothing that the Council was considering had anything to do with incurring any debt or powers of eminent domain.
The section in question is section 1.12, which was adopted in 1998 and addressed municipal debts and bonds, stating that the city must conduct a referendum vote before incurring debt or issuing bonds.
Councilwoman Sally Brown voted no both times on the revised Charter.
"I want to go on record one more time and encourage you guys to please let the citizens have a chance to take this out, their the ones who put it in. We had a huge turnout, citizens spoke," Brown said. "You want them to participate, they participated and you’re going to just mark through it and I really don’t think that’s the way to handle it ... they are intelligent people, explain to them why we need to take it out and let them take it out instead of doing it this way," she said.
In a previous phone interview, Brown said "I think that the citizens worked so hard to get that [section] in there, that I believe they should have the chance to vote to take it back out. I’m actually for the proposed changes, I just don’t like how it was handled," she said.
Councilwoman Dorissa Shackelford rebutted the statement saying it made no sense for the city to pay money for a referendum vote to take out the section.
"It’s an issue that’s in direct conflict with state law, that just doesn’t make sense," she said.
No changes have been made to the Charter since Jan. 31, when Council and Mayor spent an entire Saturday revising the charter line by line.
This was the second and last public hearing on the updated Charter, the first was held on March 5.
