Voters approve five out of seven city charter amendments

Riley Funk, St. Joseph News-Press, Mo.
·2 min read

Apr. 2—The city charter will be seeing some changes soon, as voters approved five of seven amendment propositions on Tuesday's ballot.

Propositions that passed

Proposition 1 will stagger the terms of the St. Joseph City Council. Voters passed the proposition with 69.32% approval.

Proposition 2 will restrict a person to running for only one municipal office per election. The proposition was also heavily supported by voters with 67.39%.

Proposition 3 will require a two-thirds vote from the city council to remove a city manager. It would align the removal process with the current practice of hiring a city manager, which needs a two-thirds vote from the council's members. Voters supported the change with 77.92% voting yes.

Proposition 6 changes how public notices are released, allowing them to be posted on various online platforms, including social media and the city website. Currently, public notices must be run in the newspaper. This passed by a wide margin with voters with 77.56% choosing yes.

Proposition 7 will set a mandatory retirement age of 70 for municipal judges, effective following the 2030 election. The proposition aligns with the retirement age for circuit court judges. The voters were in favor of the change with 78.87% choosing yes.

Propositions that

did not pass

Proposition 4 would have granted authority to the city council to restructure or create different city positions in coordination with the mayor and city manager. The proposition did not pass, but the final results were close. In total, 52% voted no.

Proposition 5 would have removed the personnel board and museum oversight board from the charter and add them to the City of St. Joseph administrative code. This was not supported by voters, with 53.38% choosing no on the ballot.

Riley Funk can be reached at riley.funk@newspressnow.com.