To: Honorable Mayor and Members of Town Council
From: Fritz Sprague, Deputy Town Manager
Title
Discussion/Direction Recommended Charter Direct Mail Piece
Body
________________________________________________________________________________
Executive Summary
At the September 5 Town Council meeting, staff presented a proposed educational mailer regarding the November 7 special election. Council reviewed and provided direction to modify the mailer.
The question on the ballot is a citizen-initiated Charter amendment. The goal of this educational mailer is to provide voters with information about the ballot question in advance of the election, which staff has produced for Council consideration.
Discussion
The draft-baseline mailer and a draft-recommended mailer are attached for discussion purposes. As Council directed at the September 5 meeting, the work presented contains the following changes:
• Copy has been scaled back, making the document shorter
• It explains what a “Yes” and “No” vote means in specific terms
• It has a chart with statements ‘Under the current Charter’ and ‘Amended Charter’
• FAQs that include: ‘What is the Town’s Charter?’ and ‘What is the Town’s current governing body?’ and ‘What are the Mayor’s current responsibilities?’ ‘What does a Mayor at-large mean?’ and ‘What is redistricting?’
• Information on the special election, where to register to vote and ballot election deadlines
The mailer also includes the question itself as it will appear on the ballot and special election dates.
Two attachment documents are being presented to Council. The first is the ‘baseline DRAFT’ mailer that was circulated amongst Council electronically on September 11 for feedback. As of agenda publication, we received feedback from some Councilmembers.
The second attached document is a ‘recommended DRAFT’ mailer that incorporates elements of combined feedback. A team consisting of the Town Manager, Town Attorney, Deputy Town Manager and Community Relations staff worked to incorporate suggestions as clearly as possible. These combined suggestions are incorporated in the recommended mailer and for the purpose of this presentation are highlighted in yellow. These yellow highlights will be removed before mailing.
Suggestions include making the verbiage in “What is the towns governing body” clearer and this has been added. Another suggestion asked for verbiage to be added to the redistricting section that stated if this Charter amendment is approved by voters, redistricting would be required to change Town Council from seven to six districts. This has been added.
Additionally, it was suggested that the format of the chart be adjusted from three columns down to two for purposes of simplicity. This has been changed. We carefully evaluated each statement in the shorter chart and retained almost every statement with the exception of a date certain for redistricting; there are so many variables it would be problematic to fully explain the redistricting schedule in this format. A proposed statement for clear comparison on ‘Total number of districts from 7 to 6’ has been added.
A suggestion to replace the checkmarks with a “yes” or “no” and TBD in the chart was explored. Upon review and from a communications perspective, we recommend keeping the checked boxes, rather than ‘yes’ or ‘no’ on this chart. This approach is clearer and does not confuse the reader with the ‘yes’ or ‘no’ headline in the chart detailed above. Finally, we also spelled out ‘To be determined’ (rather than TBD) where it was applicable.
Ballots are being mailed on October 16. As such, if the Town is going to provide any educational direct-mail piece to the public, September 19 is the last meeting for Council to direct staff to complete production and mail the piece to the public.
Council previously requested election costs. In summary, the total estimated cost for a November 2017 special election would be $36,200 and a February 2018 special election would be $37,195.
Recommendation
It is recommended that Town Council discuss and approve the content of the recommended DRAFT mailer so staff can move this piece into final production and mail it to the public. Three motions are offered for Council consideration following discussion and public input. Council could decline to proceed with the mailer.
“I move to approve the content of the recommended DRAFT mailer and direct staff to move forward with production and mailing”
OR
“I move to approve the content of the proposed mailer with the following amendments (add amendments) and direct staff to move forward with production and mailing”
OR
“I move to direct staff not to proceed with the mailer”
Attachments
Attachment A: Baseline Draft direct mail piece
Attachment B: Recommended Draft direct mail piece