HOLMES BEACH – There will be no changes on the city commission dais this year. Commissioners Pat Morton, Terry Schaefer and Carol Soustek are all automatically re-elected for another two-year term.
All three incumbent commissioners were unopposed when election candidate qualifying ended at noon on Sept. 1, eliminating the need for a November city election in 2023.
This will be Soustek’s fifth full term as a city commissioner. She was first elected in 2015 after being appointed in 2014 to fill the unexpired term of former Commissioner David Zaccagnino.
Morton was first elected in 2003 as a city commissioner, serving 17 years on the dais before losing his seat in the 2019 election. He regained his seat in 2021.
This will be Schaefer’s third term as a city commissioner. He was first elected to his seat in 2019.
Not so cut and dry were the Charter Review Commission results. After only one candidate, Holmes Beach resident William Romberger, qualified for one of the five seats, city leaders had to look to the charter and City Attorney Erica Augello for advice.
Initially, City Clerk Stacey Johnston announced that Romberger would be working to appoint an additional four members to the Charter Review Commission. Then Augello weighed in with a different opinion by email.
In her email, Augello said that because there were not five members sitting on the commission, the seats could not be vacated and therefore an appointment couldn’t occur. Under the city’s charter, she said there must be five members, or the review board can’t convene.
“Right now, the city is in a position where it is violating its charter by following the provisions of its charter through no fault of its own,” Augello said. “There is no way to enforce it if not enough people volunteer to run and serve.”
What this means for city commissioners is that they are now tasked with amending the charter.
According to the Holmes Beach charter, a charter review commission must be convened every five years to see if any amendments need to be made to the document by which the city is run. Mayor Judy Titsworth often refers to the charter as the city’s “Bible” during city commission meetings. Without a charter review commission, the scheduled five-year examination of the document in 2024 cannot take place.
Augello said an ordinance needs to be drafted for commissioners to consider to amend the charter to put the operations of the city back in line with the document.
This year marks the first time since the city was incorporated in 1950 that not enough people qualified to run for the charter review commission.
