Charter Election Proposition F

Shall Section 11.23 “Rearrangement and numbering” of the Charter of the Town of Addison, Texas, be renamed to “Non-substantive changes” and amended to provide ongoing authority for the City Council, by ordinance, to make non-substantive changes for clarity, change terms of gender to gender-neutral terms and remove Section 11.18 “Gender clause?”

Impact

Currently, any change to the Charter must be reviewed and voted on by the public. This includes simple, non-substantive changes such as correcting grammatical issues and renumbering or reorganizing the order of the document. This proposition would enable the City Council to make non-substantive changes related to reorganizing and clarifying the Charter by ordinance rather than requiring a vote of the citizens in the future. As part of these non-substantive changes, the proposition contemplates replacing gender-specific terms such as “Councilmen,” “his,” or “him” with gender-neutral terms such as “Council Member,” “them” or “their.” Should this proposition pass and these changes be made, Section 11.18, which addresses the interpretation of gender-specific terms, would then be removed as it would no longer be necessary. Substantive changes or any amendments that would alter the meaning of any section of the Charter would continue to require voter approval in the future.