Council continues discussions on ward, mayoral term limit changes

The Red Oak City Council is continuing discussions on changing the make-up of the council and extending the term limit of the mayor.
Red Oak city administrator Lisa Kotter said the decisions would likely fall under a referendum.
“If you want the council to be all at-large, the recodification firm thought the at-large change could be an ordinance by the council. The Corning community recently made the change and they did so by referendum,” said Kotter.
Also in question was how the council would go about the petitioning process for a change.
“Even if the council wants to initiate it, are you going to be the ones that go and circulate the petition, or are you going to look for community members that are like-minded to the idea and have someone willing to go and circulate a petition that can then be presented to the council?” commented Kotter.
Kotter also questioned the timing and how the council wanted to go forward.
“My guess would be that you don’t want to pay for a special election, so I would think you would want to try and time it so that if it is a referendum vote, it’s done a year from now, next November. The mayor’s term is two more years, and then if anything changes, it’s all post November of 2025, and you don’t have to pay for a special election. Everyone would be as-is during the next election, and the changes wouldn’t take place until 2027. You can do it sooner, but once you circulate a petition, we have so many days to act,” explained Kotter.
Kotter advised against circulating a petition now, as even if it was successfully circulated, since there was no upcoming local election, the city would have to pay.
“In my last city that was half the size of Red Oak, we paid $3,000 for an election. Assuming there’s some correlation to the population, we could be talking a lot of money, and I don’t think that’s the best use of dollars. We can circulate the petition in summer of 2025 ahead of the November election.
Kotter was in agreement with the council that moving to an at-large council in it’s entirety would be beneficial.
“If you have two great people in one ward, only one of them can win, and you can end up with a ward with no one on the ballot because it’s based on geography. In a community of this size, nobody really has things they prioritize because of where they live, and I don’t think people vote differently because they live in Ward One versus Ward Three. That’s more of a problem in an urban city,” advised Kotter.
Kotter also added that if someone in Tim Fridolph’s ward thinks he’s doing a good job, they likely aren’t going to run against him, whereas they would have the opportunity to join the council if they were not restricted by wards.
Fridolph said he was on the council with prior members Scott Keith and Jeanice Lester who were all in Ward One, and none of them voted for anything that specifically benefitted that ward. Keith was the Ward One councilperson and Fridolph and Lester were elected at-large.
Kotter said petitioning for signatures would be the same as if someone were running for office, and that petitions could run concurrently.
“I would think that you have to have separate petitions, but you could conduct the petitions at the same time,” stated Kotter.
Fridolph felt if one petition was going to be conducted, they might as well do them both at the same time.
Kotter said she would be open to contacting County Auditor Jill Ozuna for the exact costs of a special election, and also felt that the council needed someone to circulate the petitions and get signatures, rather than simply make changes under council action.
Councilperson Brian Bills didn’t feel it was necessary to research special election costs. Fridolph, however, felt they could get the information, but they wouldn’t have to decide.
“It would be nice to know what the cost is so that if we decided to go through with it, we’d know the price and the timeline. I don’t think it would hurt to look into it,” commented Fridolph.
Kotter said another factor against a special election would be that there’s a blackout period.
“For a certain period of time before an election, you can’t present referendums. You can’t hold a special election within a certain period of time before a general election, so you’d have to establish a timeline, and circulate the papers in 2025,  then allow enough time before the referendum for the council to act,” Kotter advised.
The council agreed for Kotter to seek more information about special election costs, petitioning, and timing, and further discussion will take place at a future city council meeting.