Santa Clara’s charter review subcommittees have now met and are beginning to shape their recommendations.
At the committee’s Jan. 21 meeting, five of the six subcommittees presented overviews of their discussions since November. Subcommittee 6, Fiscal Administration & Procurement, has not yet met.
Unrelated, committee members Eric Jensen, Mohammad Naveed, Pat Nikolai, Holly Rhea Roberts, and Bernard Thamsey were absent.
Committee member Eric Crutchlow summed up the central challenge of this project.
“The entire charter is a cobweb of things that were put together [in such a way] that it’s very hard to ensure that you cover all your bases,” said Crutchlow.
Subcommittee 1 – Powers and Structure of City Government: Reorganize Charter
No members of the subcommittee were present, so City Attorney Glen Googins gave the report. The subcommittee is proposing a reorganization of the city charter that would organize things functionally. For example, rules for all elections would be in the same section, instead of in sections pertaining to individual offices.
The committee also discussed: having fewer details in the charter and enacting more policy by ordinance, distinguishing city utility property from city property and clarifying the definition of who’s a “qualified elector” in Santa Clara —including whether to keep that term or replace it with the plain English “registered voter.” (Three subcommittees discussed the definition of “qualified elector,” reflecting a 2022 situation when someone who asserted he was living at his business in Santa Clara was briefly appointed to the planning commission.)
Googins also noted the “old-fashioned nature of how ordinances are published … in a newspaper” and suggested “augment[ing] that with providing some appropriate digital or electronic notice.” By law, California legal notices must be published in a “newspaper of record.”
Subcommittee 2 — City Council, Elections, Powers, and Conduct of Meetings: Council Conduct
For its first meetings, the subcommittee focused on the city council section of the charter.
They discussed whether council salaries were adequate, given the duties of the job and changing the meeting requirement to 24/year instead of 2/month. They also discussed the need for clearer definitions of quorums, proper and improper council member conduct, and councilmanic interference — council members giving directions to city staff directly, instead of the city manager.
They also recommended adding a description of Strong City Manager/Weak Mayor form of municipal government to the charter.
Subcommittee 3 — Senior Officials, Duties, Qualifications: Facing the City Clerk Problem
This group is currently grappling with Santa Clara’s own peculiar institution: a city clerk with the title and an assistant clerk who does the job.
The city clerk is elected and their tasks are limited to overseeing the city seal and swearing in city officials. No professional qualifications are required, and the clerk reports to no one. All the other duties are performed by the assistant city clerk, who reports to the city manager and must have professional qualifications.
This arrangement isn’t what’s described in the city charter, however. The present system evolved in 2018, when longtime city clerk Rod Diridon Jr. resigned. At that time, the council took advantage of a charter provision that allowed the city clerk’s duties to be assigned to another employee in the event of an absence or vacancy.
The subcommittee discussed clarifying, in the charter, the roles of the elected city clerk and the appointed assistant city clerk; as well as “cleanup” and “best practices” for the city manager and city attorney positions.
Subcommittee 4 — Boards and Commissions: Definitions and Members
Santa Clara has boards, commissions and committees, but no definition of what distinguishes these bodies. One task of this subcommittee is to define what these should be and their responsibilities.
For example, there’s a Senior Advisory Commission, a Board of Library Trustees and a Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Committee. All of these are standing committees that meet monthly. Their membership doesn’t include city council members. Some are specified in the charter. But nowhere is there a definition of “board,” “commission,” or “committee.”
Further, the roles of these committees are vague at best, with the role of the Board of Library Trustees coming in for extensive discussion.
The group also discussed transparency in closed sessions, residency requirements for appointees, whether an ethics commission should be established in the charter and causes for removal from committees.
Subcommittee 5 — Civil Service: Modernizing and Clarifying
The civil service subcommittee has met twice, and focused on modernizing and clarifying rules governing the Civil Service Commission and employees covered by California civil service rules — “classified.”
The group is recommending that the commission identify exactly what jobs are classified and which aren’t, requiring Civil Service Commission members to comply with conflict of interest rules, and adding a procedure for changing job classifications.
This subcommittee, too, wants to replace “qualified elector” with clearer language and proposed a glossary of terms to improve public understanding. In addition, the group noted that the city’s Salary-Setting Committee — which sets salaries for elected officials, and was created eight years ago — is not included in the existing charter.
City Attorney Googins kept the members of Subcommittee 6 — Fiscal Administration & Procurement — late to see if they could “get a meeting on the calendar.”
The next meeting of the Charter Review committee is Wednesday, Feb. 18, at 6 p.m. in council chambers. Zoom link: https://santaclaraca.zoom.us/j/86127408402
For more information about the committee, visit https://tinyurl.com/sccharterreview26. The page also has links to other CA cities’ charters. Find the agenda reports for the Jan. 21 meeting at https://tinyurl.com/sccharterreview26ppts.
Carolyn Schuk can be reached at carolyn@santaclaraweekly.com.
For more details on the Charter Review Committee:
Charter Review Subcommittees Raise Transparency Concerns
Santa Clara 2025 Charter Review Committee Gets to Work
2025 Charter Review Committee Set
