Commission Strikes Down Proposed Elected Mayor Referendum

If Sarasota wants to vote in March on having an elected mayor, someone's going to have to do a petition drive at this point.

Sarasota City Commissioners killed work Monday night on a proposal presented by Commissioner Paul Caragiulo to have voters decide if they want an elected/strong mayor. The

Vice Mayor Willie Charles Shaw and Commissioners Shannon Snyder and Terry Turner voted to have staff stop work on the ordinance while Caragiulo and Mayor Suzanne Atwell voted against the motion.

"I could never ever support something that people fought for to get in the way of a federal court case to even bring about this representation," Shaw said. The current form of government was constructed to help ensure better representation of the city's minority population. "It's appalling. It's downright negative."

Shaw added that he doesn't support Caragiulo's proposal, or the Citizens For A Better Sarasota proposal to provide more powers to the city manager, which will appear on the November ballot. Snyder has also said he doesn't support either proposed change.

"This particular [strong mayor] thing I would like to see it tweaked more," Atwell said. "It is very strong."

Commissioner Terry Turner, a backer of the proposed strong city manager movement, is fed up with elected mayor initiatives.

"How frequently do we have to put these things before the people?" he said. "Maybe we can have a standing amendment on every ballot. Eventually, voters might accidentally vote for a mayor."

In the proposal, the elected mayor would become the city's chief executive officer and chief administrator, rendering a city manager useless or at least, virtually powerless.

The city commission would still have five members voted by district, according to the proposal. 

Caragiulo said the issue should have been placed on the ballot because "the voters know what's best for the voters."

Because his proposal is commissioner-led, it would have enabled city staff and the commission to continue to improve the proposal, Caragiulo pointed out. Petition-driven charter amendments are virtually untouched.

"I prefer that this commission has a look at doing it this way because we can steer a proposal as opposed by a willy-nilly petition drive," he said.

There is one exception to the amending a petition-driven ballot initiative.

Earlier in commission's day, the commission voted 5-0 on an ordinance's first reading to clear up some confusion in the petition that had a

The ordinance states that the official pension administration duties of the City Auditor and Clerk does not include Firefighters’ Pension Plan or to the Police Officers’ Pension Plan and explicity states the city's understanding of a funding agreement with the Florida Department of Revenue.