The Santa Fe Charter Review Commission has finalized its recommendations for the Governing Body and will present it at Wednesday’s meeting.
The document includes six substantive amendments that would go to the Voters in November.
They include turning the Mayor’s office into an executive position that would only vote on legislation to break a tie and would have veto power. Vetoes could be overridden with a two-thirds majority of the council.
The signature threshold to get an initiative on the ballot would fall to 15-percent of voters in the last election instead of the current one-third.
Feeling that they had to rush through some decisions, the Commission wants the next group to have more time to make recommendations, getting a year instead of seven months.
After it was over Commission Chair Nancy Long thanked her colleagues and city staff for all their work.
“I want to thank all of you for your hard work and dedication to the citizens of Santa Fe because I think that was preeminent in all the work you did throughout this process,” she said. “I enjoyed making some new acquaintances and working with some old friends and I think we can all be very proud of the work that we did and the process. It’s really been a pleasure.”
The Governing Body will now go over the recommendations.
It will be up to them to place any amendments on the November ballot or to make any other changes that won’t need to go to the voters. No actions are expected during the meeting.
The Governing Body will be voting on the budget for the next fiscal year on Wednesday. The $403 million dollar spending packagewas approved by the Finance Committee last month.
