City Council to Consider Adding “Explanatory Caption” to Proposed Charter Amendment

Lucas Day July 30, 2024July 30, 2024

This morning (July 30) the city added a Special City Council meeting to its calendar to be held at 6 p.m. tomorrow (July 31).

The short meeting agenda shows the main matter of business will considering whether or not to add an “Explanatory Caption” that may hurt resident efforts to a mend the city charter. The proposed caption states that City Council believes the charter amendment “contravenes existing laws of the State of Michigan.”

Last week, ELi reported a resident initiative collected enough signatures to appear on the November general election ballot. The petitioning group believes the city should not use relationship-based criteria to limit who can stay in a home.

The language of a proposed charter amendment, as it appears on the organizing group’s website.

However, two members of City Council, Erik Altmann and Mark Meadows, have pushed back against the charter amendment, saying it would interfere with the city’s rental restriction district system and hurt the city’s ability to enforce its housing and rental laws.

City officials have also said resident concerns about the housing and rental codes should be addressed through ordinance changes, not by amending the city charter. At the July 23 council meeting, Meadows said the city will soon reveal a draft of proposed ordinance amendments that he said clarify the city code and address resident concerns.

To this point, other members of Council have not clearly stated a stance on the proposed amendment. Council will take a stance if it votes on adding the caption. If approved, the caption will be added to November’s ballot, above the current language. The proposed caption reads:

“The proposed Charter amendment below was initiated by a resident petition. The City Council believes that the proposed Charter amendment contravenes existing laws of the State of Michigan, including but not limited to the Home Rule City Act, MCL 117.1, et. seq.; and the Michigan Zoning Enabling Act, MCL 125.3101, et. seq.”

In addition to Council’s discussion about the explanatory caption, there will be time for public comment. Council will also depart to closed-session to discuss “an attorney-client privileged memorandum.”