Augusta’s efforts to revise the Consolidation Act moved forward Thursday at a community meeting organized by Mayor Garnett Johnson at Good Shepherd Baptist Church.
David Tanner, associate director of the University of Georgia’s Carl Vinson Institute of Government, outlined to the group reasons local governments change their charters, including to keep current with laws, practices and population shifts.
The document that consolidated Augusta and Richmond County has seen little change since voters approved it in 1995.
Missing from the FPL Foods spaghetti dinner Thursday were all but one Augusta commissioner. Several of the others declined to attend because Johnson organized the meeting without consulting the governing body.
“We should have had a heads up on this even being planned,” Commissioner Tony Lewis said.
Although most of the UGA institute’s work has been with small cities, according to Tanner, it facilitated DeKalb County’s 18-month revamp of its charter, which resulted in a 74-page report released a year ago.
The DeKalb Charter Review Commission was composed of about 16 members, including one from the school board, three appointed by DeKalb’s CEO, seven by the DeKalb Commission, three each by the DeKalb state House and Senate delegations and two ex-officio members from the legislature.
Augusta’s commission could change the charter on its own, but certain types of changes require legislative approval, Tanner said. These are changing the form of government, election and appointment processes, court jurisdictions and any method of taxation.
Some cities simply ask their attorney to revise their charter. Others hire an agency such as the institute to facilitate, provide staff support and document the process, he said.
Questions raised by members of the public included how to be a part of the process and where to find the document being considered for revision.
Commissioner Wayne Guilfoyle asked if the new government could include a separate tax for the sheriff’s office to cover Sheriff-elect Gino Brantley’s request for $5.3 million.
Juanita Burney asked if the process would allow residents to recover from Hurricane Helene first.
“I hope it’s going to be slow enough to allow the citizens to come forward with more of a clear head,” she said.
Edward Jefferson asked what safeguards would ensure Augusta’s revised charter isn’t overturned by the legislature, as state Republicans did with the city’s redistricting plan.
“They sent the redistricting up to the state and a certain amount of legislators changed it,” he said.
Johnson said he hoped legislators would respect the people’s wishes.
Former commissioner Ben Hasan asked if the revised charter would need voter approval, as the current one did.
Johnson said he was unsure if state law requires a referendum.
On the timeline, Johnson said he hopes the commission will approve a resolution authorizing the process by year’s end, with a committee assembled by early 2025.
