The Denton City Council failed to reach majority consensus Tuesday afternoon to move forward with a couple of major recommendations by the citizen charter review committee that could have changed the council’s makeup and added two seats.
The council currently has four members who each represent a single district of the city and three members who represent the entire city — the mayor and two at-large council members.
A majority of the review committee members, 8-4, recommended eliminating the two at-large council seats and converting the council to eight seats, each representing one district, with only one citywide position, the mayor. Supporters argued this would offer better representation and make it more affordable for people who work full-time to campaign for a council seat.
City staff estimated it would cost up to $284,000-$584,000 to convert the council to eight single-member district seats, plus about $109,700 annually. Those numbers included the estimated cost of hiring a redistricting consultant to ensure the redrawn district maps comply with state and federal laws, as well as operational and other costs.
“In this day of inclusion, this flies in the face of that and instead of blurring the lines, we’re drawing more lines and segregating ourselves even more,” council member Joe Holland said. “Currently, [a voter] can cast four votes for a seven-member City Council, and this plan limits it to two. I see that as absolutely going backward. We got retired people, educators, a truck driver [on the council]. I don’t know how much more diversity we need. I don’t see how anybody can get on board with this.”
In support of the committee’s recommendation, council member Brandon Chase McGee said it “allows more people more direct access [to council members] and allows for better representation. This is a way to negate the money.”
The council did agree to move forward with the committee’s recommendations to allow voters in May 2025 to decide on resolving conflicts with state law and vague and unclear language, as well as replacing gendered language with non-gendered language in the city charter.
They also agreed to let voters decide whether the municipal judge should move from a two-year term to a four-year one.
The decisions on proposed charter updates come two years after council member Brian Beck made the initial inquiry in 2022 about city charter amendments, five years after voters had approved changes to the charter.
In December 2022, city staff held a work session with the City Council to discuss possible changes, both from council members and staff. Some of those proposals included revising the recall petition rules to add justification, a threshold and a concurrent replacement.
Over the past three years, the Denton council has been rife with recall elections. Two council members were recalled — Alison Maguire in 2022 and Jesse Davis in 2023 — and residents are currently circulating recall petitions for McGee and Mayor Gerard Hudspeth.
In December 2023, council members approved the formation of the charter review committee. From July to November, committee members wrestled with possible charter amendments over the course of eight meetings. For an amendment recommendation to move forward, it required an eight-person majority.
Council members discussed those considerations along with their financial impacts on Tuesday, after the rules of procedure required a two-thirds majority vote of the council.
Besides proposing changes to the makeup of the City Council, the citizen committee also recommended (by a vote of 10-3) raising the stipend for council members and voted 13-1 to call for one year of residency for people seeking to serve on all judicial and quasi-judicial citizen boards and commissions appointed by council.
The city estimated that increasing the mayor and council stipend would cost about $4,250 annually, based on the 3% cost of living adjustment employees received in 2024.
As for the one-year residency proposal, staff estimated it would cost about $2,300 for implementation and $1,700 annually, accounting for increased staff time to implement and maintain the verification process.
Both items failed to receive consensus from a council majority.
Council members also discussed the committee’s recommendation (by a vote of 10-1) not to extend council members’ two-year terms to three or four years, and (by a vote of 11-2) not to seek a 200-word statement offering grounds for a recall election.
“Two years does work best,” council member Jill Jester said about term lengths. “It is a big commitment, and it is time away from your profession, your job and your family. I think we would be limiting who would be available to run and participate by increasing the term.”
Council member Vicki Byrd disagreed and said three-year terms would be easier on finances and less stressful and help new council members, who usually spend their first year trying to find their bearings and their voice.
“It is pressure to look for [campaign] funding, and it is a very, very, very, very difficult task looking for funding,” Byrd said. “There are so many hands you have to shake and so many people you have to meet.”
As for adding grounds to recall a council member, Beck said committee members didn’t recommend it because they wanted something more substantive.
Beck also mentioned the two recall petitions that have started circulating since the charter review committee was formed. He stressed that adding grounds for a recall petition would limit frivolous recall efforts.
Mayor Pro Tem Paul Meltzer told Hudspeth they could have the city’s ethics board determine whether a recall petition has grounds. Hudspeth pointed out that the council appoints the ethics board and seemed to question whether the idea would be ethical, but Meltzer said ethics board members could recuse themselves if they were appointed by the council member facing a recall.
But council members couldn’t reach a consensus on the item.
“It goes back to the two-year terms,” Holland said to council members. “If voters are unhappy, you’re not married for more than two years, and it works well. The ability to change it doesn’t mean we need to change it.”