Augusta’s Charter Review Committee took its show back on the road this week with remarks from Chair Marcie Wilhelmi.
The former commodities trader and pharmaceutical rep served multiple terms on Augusta’s aviation commission and now manages her family’s real estate trust, said Randy Sasser with the West Augusta Alliance.
The neighborhood group hosted Wilhelmi and other members of the review committee Thursday at Aldersgate United Methodist Church. Committee members have appeared at other community forums, including at Henry Brigham Center and Eastview.
The committee, which meets every other Thursday, next week will participate in a Zoom call with a University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill professor of public administration on government corruption “and what to do about it,” Sasser told the group.
Wilhelmi said the committee and its two subcommittees had intense debates.
“I say that gently and nicely in the best of words. No fisticuffs or anything yet, but you can imagine there’s a lot of differing opinions,” she said.
The city hired the Carl Vinson Institute at the University of Georgia as the “subject matter expert” to advise the committee on what to take out of the charter and what to add, she said.
The Vinson group is being paid $320,174 under a contract. The institute has performed extensive strike-throughs on a 173-page document containing the original Consolidation Act plus numerous ordinances considered amendments to the charter.
The form of government committee is looking at options such as the “strong mayor-council form” used in Macon-Bibb County, Wilhelmi said.
Unlike Augusta’s mayor, Macon’s mayor appoints top officials and prepares a budget, but each is subject to commission approval. The mayor has a veto, but the nine-member commission can override it.
Consolidated Augusta’s founders, meanwhile, “because of the times” created an “extremely weak” mayor, Wilhelmi said.
The committee also has heard from three of Augusta’s former mayors, each of whom strongly favored “something of a strong mayor,” Wilhelmi said.
“That flies right in the face of what we think the public would like,” but aren’t entirely sure, she said. Results of a community survey are expected to be presented by Vinson officials Thursday.
The strong mayor is “usually accompanied by a strong manager,” which is “different than an administrator,” Wilhelmi said. She predicted the committee’s work could be done in “four weeks, six weeks,” adding that “technically are supposed to be done by March of 26.”
From the committee’s recommendations, a “written document” with a “fairly healthy appendix” will go to the legislature, which has “authority to rewrite a lot of what we put down,” she said.
The final recommendations will be returned to the city, where they are expected to go before voters in a referendum.
The Vinson group has also recommended the committee look at adding provisions regarding ethics and transparency, Wilhelmi said.
Committee member Steven Foushee, who chairs the form of government subcommittee, said he strongly favored a mayor who worked with a manager.
Audience members asked what the committee considered a “successful” government, why recommendations aren’t going to the Augusta Commission first, and how to access meeting minutes, which aren’t posted on the committee website.
