BARTLESVILLE, Okla. — Bartlesville leaders plan to amend their city charter in an early April election. Voters will see a larger-than-normal ballot, with ten propositions up for discussion.
The changes up for vote look at the city charter and amendments they hope to make to streamline the governmental process. City Manager Mike Bailey said that while there are a lot of propositions, they don’t often address so many of these issues.
“As you work through the process and you begin to identify that these are some things that we need to do now to make us better to help us with our stability and to ensure we get good quality candidates in the future,” said Bailey. “Well, while were at it, let’s look at the other things that we’ve noted through the year.”
Bailey said changing this language now would increase stability for current and future candidates who want to lead the city.
The first five propositions are the changes of substance, and the second half focuses on language that no longer applies.
Bailey said the biggest changes of substance include moving all city elections to April versus multiple times throughout the year, staggering councilor terms so they don’t all fall off at the same time, extending them from three years to two, and holding those elections annually.
Moving the elections away from the general election season in November would allow for more focus on the local issues.
“We believe that our local elections, which are much, much smaller in scale than these large national elections, get lost in the shuffle,” said Bailey. “We really like that April date; that’s when you have school board elections, that’s when you have other local elections; in fact, the statutory city elections occur in April, and so if you don’t have a charter, you’re already having it in April.”
One con Bailey said the city has discussed is lower voter turnout by moving elections to a different part of the year.
Resident Crystal Fielder said she doesn’t feel like the community shows up for elections as it is now.
“I feel like our numbers are low,” said Fielder. “When we do school bonds, it always surprises me how many people don’t come out, and we have more children now and families.”
Should the change in scheduling pass, Fielder said she could see it encouraging more people to participate by putting all of the issues on one ballot.
“I think it would bring more people in and I think that it would be easier on the people that want to vote but normally can’t because they can arrange it in their day,” said Fielder. “I think it would just make more sense.”
The election is scheduled for April 2.
See the sample ballots here:
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