{"id":54391,"date":"2025-03-04T18:38:31","date_gmt":"2025-03-04T23:38:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/?p=54391"},"modified":"2025-03-04T18:39:14","modified_gmt":"2025-03-04T23:39:14","slug":"changes-to-the-lakeland-city-charter-have-been-proposed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/2025\/03\/04\/changes-to-the-lakeland-city-charter-have-been-proposed\/","title":{"rendered":"Changes to the Lakeland City Charter have been proposed"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">After a year and a half of work and meetings, Lakeland\u2019s Charter Review Committee announced to the City Commission on Monday the changes it is recommending be made to the document by which every aspect of the city is governed.<\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-full is-resized\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" data-dominant-color=\"717c94\" data-has-transparency=\"false\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"300\" height=\"168\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1110px) 100vw, 1110px\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/download-2.webp?resize=300%2C168&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-54392 not-transparent\" style=\"--dominant-color: #717c94; width:707px;height:auto\"\/><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Charter Review Commission is empaneled every eight years to fine-tune&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/library.municode.com\/fl\/lakeland\/codes\/code_of_ordinances?nodeId=PTICHRELA\">Lakeland\u2019s city charter<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">There are nearly 200 sections in the charter that were reviewed, line by line, over the last 18 months.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The major recommended changes included:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Determining the requirements of selling off any of the city\u2019s utilities, including Lakeland Electric.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Redrawing commission boundaries.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The biggest change proposed includes new, expanded language regarding the process by which Lakeland electric, the city water utility, and the city wastewater utility could be sold.<\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-full is-resized\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" data-dominant-color=\"dad6d4\" data-has-transparency=\"false\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"259\" height=\"194\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1110px) 100vw, 1110px\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/download-3.webp?resize=259%2C194&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-54393 not-transparent\" style=\"--dominant-color: #dad6d4; width:470px;height:auto\"\/><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The committee did not propose or consider selling Lakeland Electric.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Under the suggested changes, a proposed sale of any of the city utilities would require:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>A unanimous vote of the City Commission approving such a sale and authorizing a referendum. In the past, it was a simple majority of the commission in order to put it on the ballot.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>An affirmative vote of two-thirds of the city electors voting in such a referendum. In the past, it was two-thirds of all registered voters.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>That the referendum take place at either a regular city election or a single subject special election, where the sale is the only question to be decided.\u00a0\u00a0<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Making all the commissioners approve of the sale raises the threshold, but allowing for two-thirds of those who vote, rather than two-thirds of all registered voters, would make a sale easier.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The city-owned Lakeland Electric adds about $33.4 million to the city\u2019s revenue&nbsp;each year. Lakeland Electric pays its own expenses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The redrawn boundary lines ensure that a nearly equal number of people live in each of the four districts. On average, about 28,000 will live in each district.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Mayor Bill Mutz and Commissioners Stephanie Madden and Chad McLeod are at-large representatives. They can live anywhere in the city and represent all of the approximately 120,000 people who live within its limits.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Members of the committee were:&nbsp;<\/strong>Slyvia Blackmon-Roberts, Will Harrell, Jason Rodda, Patricia Steed, Lincoln H. Jacobs IV, Jim Edwards, Terry Coney, Scott Reed, Teddra Porteous, Kimberly Elmhorst, James Ring, Michael Workman, Veronica Rountree, Denise Gilmore, and Frank McCaulley.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">City Attorney Palmer Davis served as an advisor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">To see the changes in the document,&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.documentcloud.org\/documents\/25550811-03042025charter-final-changes\/\">go here.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>After a year and a half of work and meetings, Lakeland\u2019s Charter Review Committee announced to the City Commission on Monday the changes it is recommending be made to the&hellip; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":54392,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"7591","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","inline_featured_image":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"wpai_generated_summary":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":true,"token":"eyJpbWciOiJodHRwczpcL1wvaTAud3AuY29tXC9sYWtlbGFuZGdhemV0dGUuaW5mb1wvbmV3c1wvd3AtY29udGVudFwvdXBsb2Fkc1wvMjAyNVwvMDNcL2Rvd25sb2FkLTIud2VicD9maXQ9MzAwJTJDMTY4JnNzbD0xIiwidHh0IjoiQ2hhbmdlcyB0byB0aGUgTGFrZWxhbmQgQ2l0eSBDaGFydGVyIGhhdmUgYmVlbiBwcm9wb3NlZCIsInRlbXBsYXRlIjoiaGlnaHdheSIsImJsb2dfaWQiOjE2MzA0MDY2MX0.iIU3Ofk8JF3udk8y_XEwWvEWv-8q0U5Ceua9KY1vpQMMQ"},"version":2,"attached_media":[{"id":54392,"url":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/download-2.webp","type":"image\/jpeg"}]},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[7591],"tags":[11039],"class_list":["post-54391","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-city-of-lakeland","tag-changes-to-the-lakeland-city-charter-have-been-proposed"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54391","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=54391"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54391\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":54394,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54391\/revisions\/54394"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/54392"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=54391"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=54391"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=54391"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}