Tuesday’s Bryan city council meeting was originally scheduled to be the second time in three months to consider voters decide a proposed change to the city charter without submitting petition signatures.
But Mayor Jason Bienski opened the regular meeting by announcing that the Partners For a Better Bryan group wanted to proceed with its petition campaign to ask voters in November to allow all city voters to elect all single member district councilmembers. Bienski and councilman Art Hughes had placed the item on Tuesday’s agenda.
In April, the council rejected a similar request from councilmen Al Saenz and Rafael Pena. They supported three proposed charter changes promoted by the group Citizens for Bryan. Representatives dropped off their petitions for certification on Monday. Citizens for Bryan wants to ban relatives of council members from being hired or appointed to city positions, ban councilmembers from considering items presented by campaign donors of more than 250 dollars, and ban council members from mentioning their position when campaigning for other political candidates.
About 1,400 signatures need to be certified to place each question on the November ballot.
To meet local requirements, the council has until August 18th to order the charter elections.
Despite the SMD charter question being removed from Tuesday’s council agenda, there were 18 speakers during the public comment portion of the meeting. A representative of Partners For a Better Bryan spoke first. 16 of the remaining 17 were opposed, with one offering his expertise as a political science professor at Texas A&M University.
Click below to listen to the speakers.