Correction
This story was updated to clarify that the Charter Review Committee was not able to reach a majority vote Thursday on whether to recommend changing how the City Council is structured, so the issue will come back for review at the next meeting.
The Denton City Council’s Charter Review Committee voted Thursday evening not to recommend extending the two-year length of council terms, but delayed a decision on making changes to the current makeup of the council.
Committee Chair Kristine Bray said that because a majority of the full voting body was not present Thursday, a recommendation to change how council is structured, adjusting the at-large and single-member district representatives, will come back for review at the next meeting.
Committee members were discussing whether to change two of the three seats from representing the whole city at large to representing one district of the city — citing, in part, the cost-effectiveness of campaigning in only one district and the ability to offer better representation and accountability measures for council members.
Those who supported the current council makeup worried that turning the at-large seats — elected by all Denton voters — into seats representing smaller areas of the city would mean council members might ignore constituents outside of their districts.
Committee member Brian Danhof reiterated that Denton has a city charter that meets best practices of seven to nine council members, as recommended by the Texas Municipal League. It’s also comparable to other cities of similar size and representation per district.
Danhof stressed that it would cost between $40,000 and $120,000 in legal fees to redistrict two citywide seats and that they could come back in two years to reconsider changes during the next review cycle.
The 2030 census is also only about five years away and will give a better idea of how much growth has impacted the city, Danhof said.
“I think that we’re putting the cart before the horse a little bit,” Danhof said. “We got something that has worked for 44 years.”
Committee member Jesse Davis, who is a former council member, suggested that it would be better for the seven-member council to act as a board of directors over Denton, which he described as a “$2.35 billion corporation,” rather than like the U.S. House of Representatives.
Another member, Gabriel Kirkpatrick, didn’t think the committee should “kick it down the street” to a future charter review committee when they could do something about the issue right now for citizens.
He stressed that they should expand the council to make the districts smaller for better representation.
Kirkpatrick said local elections are becoming more expensive. He referred to the May election, when one candidate for a citywide race, Lilyan Prado Carrillo, was able to raise $25,000 over the whole campaign cycle, only to face an opponent, council member Jill Jester, who was able to “gift themselves $25,000” as loans numerous times.
According to campaign finance reports, Kirkpatrick was paid a total of $8,200 for working as a contractor for Prado Carrillo’s and council member Brandon Chase McGee’s campaigns ($2,871 and $5,329, respectively) this past election cycle.
Kirkpatrick said that there are people in the community whose voices aren’t being heard and that it has been a consistent issue.
Constituents have voiced concerns to the council on issues such as the Northeast Denton Area Plan, the update to the zoning map in 2019 and redistricting about five years ago.
“I just think simply enough that when you’re able to have more representation — a little bit smaller, a little bit more efficient — you’re going to have a better opportunity of knowing your constituents,” Kirkpatrick said.