Rejected city propositions mean two boards remain on charter

Apr. 3—While voters approved the majority of proposed city charter amendments on Tuesday, two propositions failed, meaning two boards will not move under the city administrative code.

Proposition 5 would have removed the Museum Oversight Board and the Personnel Board from the city charter and added them to the City of St. Joseph administrative code. However, voters rejected this proposition, with 53.4%, or 4,803 people, voting no.

St. Joseph Museums was founded in 1927 and has served as the municipal museum for almost 100 years. The Museum Oversight Board was added to the city charter in 2006 as a way to look over the museum tax fund that has been in place since 1947, according to Sara Wilson, executive director of St. Joseph Museums. She explained the Museum Oversight Board acts a liaison between the museums and the city.

Wilson and museum leaders took issue with the proposition because they felt it would take museum funding decisions out of their hands.

"There are a lot of things that we have to do in order to receive municipal museum funding, and if this had changed, it would make it easier for the council to say, 'We can give money wherever we want.' I think that the public was voting for accountability because I think that we are held to a high standard," Wilson said.

Mayor John Josendale said in an interview prior to the election that the purpose of the change was not to take control away.

"The concern being that we're taking power away from the oversight board. That's not at all what's happening. All we're doing is we're taking it from the charter and we're moving it to the city code of ordinances. By doing that, it gives us the ability to work with them and actually move in a more fluent manner," Josendale said.

Wilson explained further that concerns arose that funds could potentially become imbalanced among the museums if the proposition passed.

"We have many museums in St. Joseph that are doing great work. We need a funding solution for all of the museums. I don't think that this was the direction that collectively we need to go to stabilize the structure," Wilson said. "What (Proposition 5) would essentially do is move it (the oversight board) over underneath the council so that the council is making those decisions versus the voters. I think what happened yesterday (Tuesday) is that the voter decided that they want to be the ones in charge of making that change."

Josendale noted the concern of favoritism but said in a previous interview that the proposition was meant to improve collaboration.

"As everyone knows, we have a number of museums in town and there's concern over, are we going to give favoritism to one versus the other. What we're trying to do is to make sure that everybody understands that the city wants to do what's best for everybody and make sure everybody's involved," Josendale said.

The other failed proposition, Proposition 4, would have given authority to the city council to restructure or create different city positions in tandem with the mayor and city manager. This was the closest vote among the proposed charter amendments on Tuesday. In total 52%, or 4,678 voters, chose no and 4,318, or 48%, chose yes.

If both would have passed, Proposition 4 could have also underlined the city's new role in the management of boards and commissions in that Proposition 4 focused on giving the council the ability to manage and create positions.

"If we want to restructure the city and we've created new positions, well this gives the council and the under the ordinance the ability to do that in a much easier and workable way for the city manager and staff," Josendale said. "As the world evolves and as things change, we want to be able to have the ability to make those those changes more quickly and more efficiently for the city to operate in a positive way."

The city council approved two bills Monday that would have gotten the ball rolling on the removal of the boards from the charter to the city administrative code, but the bills won't take effect voters rejected the relating propositions.

Riley Funk can be reached at riley.funk@newspressnow.com.