City Commission funds research for mayor election processes
City Commissioners meet on Sept. 23 at City Hall.
City Commissioners unanimously passed a budget amendment to provide $4,000 to the Center for Research and Rural Studies (CARRS) to research the election process of mayors at the Sept. 23 meeting.
The idea behind funding CARRS is to obtain an objective view on whether it is more beneficial for a mayor to be elected by the city commission, or to be elected at large.
Commissioner Tony Kulick is a part of the Charter Committee and felt that it was important to seek out a third party source as individuals opposed are “just going to hear the negatives and people in favor are just going to hear the positives”.
“By having CARRS, a neutral third party, come in and do that I think we’ll get a better survey [and] we’ll be more statistically correct,” Kulick said.
The Charter Committee has been working on research related to how mayors are elected in cities similar to Mount Pleasant. The research focuses on 18 cities similar to Mount Pleasant in population or with a university. Out of the cities being researched, 14 out of the 18 cities have the mayor elected at large, and four have the mayor elected by the city commission.
To further understand the election processes for each city, completion of the research would be done by questioning individuals to figure out the pros and cons of the different election processes.
The committee recommends this $4,000 budget amendment on research with CARRS to be completed before the city commission decides to consider a ballot proposal to change the election process, said City Manager Nancy Ridley.
Vice Mayor Lori Gillis is in support of allowing mayors to be elected at large and has been waiting years for this topic to be focused on, she said.
“Since my tenure here on the city commission, we have spoke about this topic several times," Gillis said. "I am very happy to see we’re going in some direction to try and get different possibilities of a mayor elect.”
Gillis also claims individuals have spoken to her about wanting residents and community members to be responsible for the election of the mayor. She encourages any community members in favor of a mayor elect at large to reach out and voice their opinions.
According to Ridley, CARRS claims that research can be completed by the end of this year with a presentation prepared for January of next year.
