Brookshire City Council postpones charter review

By Sandra Sadek | Times Editorial Intern
Posted 7/18/20

Brookshire’s City Council has postponed its review of the proposed city charter to allow councilmembers time to review each section of the charter and write out their questions during the …

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Brookshire City Council postpones charter review

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Brookshire’s City Council has postponed its review of the proposed city charter to allow councilmembers time to review each section of the charter and write out their questions during the council’s July 9 special meeting.

The city council is working to create a charter for the city as its population continues to grow. The council met to discuss and possibility take action to update or amend the city charter as recommended and approved by the city’s charter commission. The major concern of the council was whether to create a position for either a city manager or city administrator.

City Attorney Justin Pruitt explained the role of a city manager mostly focuses on separating politics from administrative tasks. However, councilmembers have the ability to describe the exact duties of the position in the charter if they desire.

“The administration of the city is supposed to be apolitical, so nonpolitical. And the idea would be that, as the council makes the policy decisions for the city, the city manager then would enact those in the best business interest of the city,” Pruitt said.

Many members of the council and the commission expressed the importance of drafting a charter that looked to the future of Brookshire rather than the present.

“When we went in for this charter, we went in with the vision that this was something that would improve the city of Brookshire,” said Kathy Foster, one of the commission members. “This charter is going to be for years to come. This is going to be for our grandchildren, our great-grandchildren and so on.”

The revision of the charter was postposed to a future date to allow council member to come up with questions for each section of the charter, making the meeting more efficient. The goal is to present the charter to citizens during the November 2020 election, which would need to be approved and completed prior to Aug. 17; however, the council is willing to withhold the charter on the ballot until 2021 to ensure its proper drafting.

Brookshire City Council, city charter, Justin Pruitt