A lineup of possible city charter amendments will be coming before the Aurora City Council for consideration after several bills cleared the council’s Charter Review Ad Hoc Committee this week.

Councilmembers Alison Coombs, Angela Lawson and Juan Marcano sit on the committee, which has been working through multiple potential ballot questions this year. Amendments to the city charter can be initiated by citizens or the city council and must receive voter approval.

If forwarded to voters and individually passed in November, the amendments would: Update the charter with gender-inclusive language; move municipal elections to even years; make council races partisan; make council seats full-time, and establish a new way of filling council vacancies.

The committee decided Tuesday to forward the bills to the full city council for review at Monday’s study session. No formal action is taken at council study sessions, but councilmembers can debate and gather a consensus on issues.

For council-initiated charter amendments, a majority of councilmembers can pass a bill that places a question on the ballot asking voters to approve changes to the charter. The bills must receive city council approval at two regular meetings in order to be make the ballot.

The proposed charter amendments advancing out of the policy committee are:

• Updating the charter to use gender-inclusive language. Councilmember Coombs is sponsoring this legislation. The proposed amendment would replace references such as “Chairman” with “chairperson,” and references to the city manager as “he” to instead say the “city manager.” The ballot question would replace uses of male and binary pronouns such as “his” with “their,” phrases such as “his or her” to “their,” and replace “he or she” with “they.”
• Moving elections to even-numbered years. Councilmember Marcano is sponsoring a proposal to shift elections to even-numbered years beginning in 2026. Councilmembers elected this year would serve a three-year term, as would councilmembers elected in 2025. Council terms would return to four-year terms following those elections. The city clerk told committee members in April that even-year elections would cost approximately $300,000, compared to $70,000 for odd-numbered years, because the city would need to serve more voters. Costs would be divided among multiple jurisdictions based on a weighted formula, the clerk said. Marcano has supported moving to even-year elections to boost turnout and engagement.
• Making city council elections partisan. Marcano is also sponsoring a proposal to make council elections partisan. The charter amendment would begin requiring that a candidate’s affiliation with major parties or unaffiliated status accompany their name on the city ballot. Marcano has touted the proposal as a way to make elections more transparent, saying partisanship already shows up in campaigns despite the offices being nonpartisan. Councilmember Lawson stood staunchly opposed to the proposal during recent committee discussions, urging voters to consider candidates beyond their party affiliation.
• Changing how council vacancies are filled. In another proposal brought forward by Marcano, this amendment would change how the charter stipulates council vacancies be filled. The proposal would create a vacancy committee comprised of the people who signed the councilmember’s nominating petition. Marcano told committee members he wants voters to fill vacancies, not councilmembers.
• Making city council positions full-time. Councilmember Lawson is sponsoring a proposal to make council positions full-time – an idea she said has been controversial but is now warranted. As the city has grown so too have the responsibilities of councilmembers, she said during committee talks. Duties include attending a host of meeting far beyond participating in city council meetings, and councilmembers do not have staff to help them prepare for meetings, she said. Lawson had previously presented multiple options to adjust councilmembers’ compensation if this question goes to voters, which will also be referred to the full council.

The committee is also moving forward potential changes to the charter that the police and fire departments requested. The amendments would change limits within the charter on the number of lateral hires the agencies can make and allow lateral police officers to be promoted earlier. There was some debate during committee meetings about whether such hiring rules should be in the charter at all or vested within city code, which is more easily changed.

The charter amendments, if the city council were to put them before voters, could join another much-discussed ballot initiative.

A group in Aurora called “Term Limits for a Better Aurora” is petitioning to get a question on the November ballot that would instate a strong-mayor system. Aurora has operated under a council-manager form of government for decades, in which a professional city manager oversees the city administratively while the mayor’s role is largely ceremonial.

Proponents leading the initiative said Aurora is large enough now that it needs a mayor with more executive powers, calling to eliminate the city manager position and give those duties to a strong mayor. The proposal would also shorten term limits and add an at-large councilmember.

The initiative immediately became controversial, with a bipartisan group of elected officials at the local, county and state level coming out in fierce opposition to a strong mayor system in Aurora. Strong mayor systems give too much power to one person, opponents said among other concerns. 

Councilmember Marcano, Councilmember Danielle Jurinsky and Mayor Pro Tem Curtis Gardner also lambasted the group for allegedly misleading residents into signing their petitions, which are due to the city clerk in early June.

The councilmembers said signature gatherers have presented the initiative as a way to change term limits while downplaying or failing to explain to residents at all that the charter amendment would actually overhaul Aurora’s form of government and give the mayor more power. 

Proponents have said everything is spelled out in the petition for people to read before signing.