Changing the City Charter?

It was just two years ago when San Angelo voters said "no" to the idea of an appointed chief of police. So originally, members of the seven-member Aan Angelo charter revision committee had decided to avoid the issue of appointed-versus-elected police chief, and instead chose to focus on other issues. Greg Gossett -- The committee first decided we would leave that alone. Weve had elections in the past on that. San Angelo attorney Greg Gossett chaired the committee. Greg Gossett -- But the chief of police and the head of the policemens organization came to our committee, and said that already with the election a little less than a year away, it was causing damage to the police department. It was affecting their morale, their operation. And they asked us to resubmit that to the voters. The group came up with recommendations for 23 changes in San Angelos city charter. Another proposal would do away with single member districts for electing city council members, a system which was set up to assure minority representation on the council. In its place would be "cumulative voting," which would allow voters to cast a ballot in favor of multiple candidates, or to cast multiple votes in favor of one candidate. Gossett -- You get six votes for city council. You can cast them for six different people. Or you can accumulate them all for one person, or any combination thereof. So if theres a minority representative that you feel strongly about, you can accumulate your votes, cast all six votes for that person and he can get elected. The group also is recommending changes in the charter which would eliminate antiquated references or rules applying to committees and boards which no longer exist. The charter revision ultimately must be approved by voters, but city council members first get to decide which of those recommendations will go to the voters. Harold Dominguez -- they have to vote on it, but they have to look at the revisions as a group and decide whether or not they want to include all of them. Or they may want to include just a portion of them and not include others. Council members will take up the issue at their next regular meeting in next week. Joel Fox, K-L-S-T news.