Supervisor of Elections: Century Charter Changes Will Remain On November Ballot

September 22, 2024

The Escambia County Supervisor of Elections (SOE) office is moving forward with vote-by-mail and sample ballots with Town of Century charter amendment questions for voters that live in the town limits.

As we previously reported, the Century Town Council Tuesday night gave final approval to three charter amendments for the November 5, 2024, general election ballot. The town submitted the charter questions to be placed on the ballot without a final approval, and the ballots were printed.

The town council gave first approval in July to the three ordinances to place the items on the ballot, but did not give a secord required approval until September 17 — nearly a month after emailing the ballot questions to the SOE office.

Bender requested final, signed copies of the ordinance setting the ballot amendments after they received a second approval at a town council meeting he attended last Tuesday night.

“The language in the ordinances did match what was previously submitted and placed on the ballot,” Bender said Friday afternoon. “The charter questions will remain on the ballot for voters in the Town of Century.”

He noted that his office did make some minor changes to the required Spanish language version of the ballot questions. “We did make some changes to accents and a few words, but the English version remained the same.”

What are the three chanter questions on the ballot?

The exact ballot questions for voters were not actually approved Tuesday night.

The SOE face a deadline of September 21 to send vote-by-mail ballots to “Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act” (UOCAVA) voters, according to the Florida Division of Elections. But the Century precinct has no uniformed or overseas voters. The deadline period to send vote-by-mail ballots to domestic voters is September 26, 2024 – October 3, 2024.

The ballot questions that were submitted without  were as follows:

Question 1:
TOWN CHARTER AMENDMENT PROVIDING FOR TOWN PURCHASING TO BE GOVERNED BY COUNCIL-APPROVED PURCHASING POLICIES
Amending the Town of Century Charter to remove specific bidding, contracting, purchasing, and expenditure requirements and procedures from the Charter, and provide that Town bidding, contracting, purchasing, and expenditures will be governed by Town ordinances, policies, and procedures adopted by the Town Council. Shall the above-described amendment be adopted?

Question 2:
TOWN CHARTER AMENDMENT CONCERNING MAYOR’S EMPLOYMENT AUTHORITY
Amending the Town of Century Charter to expand the Mayor’s powers to select, appoint, suspend, and remove town employees and appointive administrative officers, by limiting the requirement for Council approval of such actions solely to the selection, appointment, suspension, or removal of the Town Clerk, Town Attorney, and Town Manager. Shall the above-described amendment be adopted?

Question 3:
TOWN CHARTER CLEANUP AMENDMENT
Amending the Town of Century Charter to correct scriveners and codification errors, and to conform charter provisions to the requirements of the Florida Election Code. Shall the above-described amendment be adopted?

NorthEscambia.com will provide more coverage before the election on the specifics of each ballot question.

Pictured: Escambia County Supervisor of Elections Robert Bender and Chief Deputy Supervisor of Elections Sonya Daniel sit quietly in the back of the room at a Tuesday night Century Town Council meeting. NorthEscambia.com photo, click to enlarge.

Comments

3 Responses to “Supervisor of Elections: Century Charter Changes Will Remain On November Ballot”

  1. Anne on September 22nd, 2024 11:54 am

    Well, at least the citizens of the Town of Century will have a “vote” in how much power the Mayor will have.
    Wondering though how influenced the voters will be prior to their ballot dropping?
    Guess we’ll all know in a couple of months.
    Really good to have the SOE office on top of the situation.

  2. Trumpster24 on September 22nd, 2024 8:54 am

    Any amendment that gives Gomez and his puppet government more power should be voted against. Voting for this insanity is a vote against good governance.

  3. chris on September 22nd, 2024 8:30 am

    The mayor is building a dictatorship with somebody else’s money