Residency requirements for Detroit city councilors among ballot measure proposed changes

Detroit’s city charter has unique requirements.

Five of the seven city councilors have to meet requirements including living in the city for more than half of the year.

In a summer resort community like Detroit, that eliminates a lot of potential candidates who are part-time residents.

“I don’t know of any other town that requires this,” Detroit Mayor Jim Trett said.

The city will ask residents to vote May 21 on whether to change the charter to allow anyone who has a residence in Detroit to run for City Council.

The town in east Marion County is also asking voters to make changes to who is on City Council, how people are nominated for City Council, and to remove the difference between primary and non-primary residents.

The population of Detroit is estimated by Portland State University at 134 — down from 203 in 2020 when the Labor Day wildfires wiped out most of the homes in the city. Estimates of how many of them are full-time residents are as low as 26.

Proponents of the change say it is needed to allow more people to run for office.

Previous Detroit city charter change votes failed

Detroit’s current charter was adopted in 2012.

In May 2020, the city put a charter change to voters that would have required four of the five city councilors to have their primary residency in Detroit. That was voted down 55% to 44%.

In November 2022, the city put another charter change on the ballot that would have eliminated the residency requirement. It also would have fixed misspellings, formatting errors and gender exclusive references. That failed 52% to 48% with a difference of four votes.

“We felt like we didn’t do a proper job of educating our citizenry (about the changes) prior to the last election,” City Councilor Denny Nielsen said.

The current ballot measure is identical.

What is being proposed this time?

The current charter requires that five of the seven council members, and the mayor, be primary residents.

To be a primary resident, the person must live in the city more than six months per year, be registered to vote in the city, receive mail — including tax returns — at their Detroit address, have a driver’s license issued to their Detroit address and be able to attend nine of 12 City Council meetings in a year.

If the charter change passes, Nielsen said the pool of those able to serve would increase.

Nielsen said there are people who have built homes since the wildfires who intend to live in them part-time who have expressed an interest in serving on the City Council or planning commission.

“We could use all of the intellectual horsepower that we can get to rebuild the city,” Nielsen said.

The charter changes also would reduce the number of signatures each candidate needs to get on the ballot from 20 to 15.

Bill Poehler covers Marion and Polk County for the Statesman Journal. Contact him at bpoehler@StatesmanJouranl.com

This article originally appeared on Salem Statesman Journal: Detroit, Oregon, residents asked to change city charter again