The City of Holbrook will once again be traveling into troubling territory next month as two of its council members will be serving on the dais in possible violation of city charter.
According to Holbrook’s charter, Section 2.03, it states that elections are to be held every two years beginning in 1995, meaning one should have been held in 2021 and in 2023. Even though elections have traditionally been held in March, in April of 2021 a majority of the council under the leadership o then mayor Merrill Young voted during a regular council meeting to approve Ordinance 21-03, which extended the terms of its members. It was stated at the time that this was in order to have elections align with the dates that state and federal elections are held, which are in even years.
As a result of the council’s 2021 decision, the terms of then councilmembers Adam Marsh, Earl Kester and Kip Woolford were extended beyond the four years they were elected to serve until the canvas of the general election in December of 2022. And now, council members Tim Dixon and Mike Nilsson, who were seated in May of 2019, will be seated beyond the terms that Holbrook’s electors voted for, until December 2024.
The remaining three council members, Karina Pack, Robert Black and Arcenia Pacheco, were seated in December of 2022, and received a majority vote of the electors for a four-year term.
Mayor Kathleen Smith (who was elected to complete the remainder of Young’s term in August of 2022 in a recall election), also received a majority vote in the recall election with the understanding by electors that her term would end in December 2024.
The reasoning made by City Manager Ted Soltis in 2021 was that the charter was in conflict with itself. Section 2.03 of Holbrook’s charter states that the first election for the offices of mayor and council members shall be held in 1995 and every two years thereafter. It also states in Section 9.10-9.12 that elections shall be held on dates that conform to state and federal law. Those sections do not state that elections need to be held on the same dates as state and federal elections are held, just that those dates need to conform to state and federal law.
The bigger concern is not the change of dates, but how the change was made. According to Article XIII Section 2 of the Arizona Constitution, a city charter document governs a city and is one that is approved by the governor. Any changes to the charter must be approved by a majority votes of electors registered in the City of Holbrook, not the council members themselves.
Arizona Revised Statute §19-143 (C) states: “Amendments to a city or town charter may be proposed and submitted to the people by the council, with or without an initiative petition, but they shall be filed with the clerk for submission not less than sixty days before the election at which they are to be voted upon, and no amendment of a charter shall be effective until it is approved by a majority of the votes cast thereon by the people of the city or town to which it applies. The council may by ordinance order special elections to vote on municipal measures.”
If it’s true that the council is operating in violation of city charter there could be broad repercussions, including the loss of state shared revenues if the circumstance is not remedied within 31 days of being found in violation.
Haley Crawford, deputy solicitor general with the Arizona Attorney General’s Office was contacted on the matter and stated that such concerns should be addressed by the city’s legal counsel, and a lawsuit could be filed against the city by a private party if they so choose. She also added that if any state legislator has concerns, regardless if this is their jurisdiction, that person could request the matter be reviewed by the Attorney General’s Office. Efforts to contact the City of Holbrook’s attorney Bradley Burns with the law firm Dickinson Wright for comment were not returned as of press time.
