Does SJ's City Charter give priority to core city services?

San Jose is a charter city, which means that its little-read 1965 charter clearly delineates what the city should be focusing on and how it should function. But a close read of the charter reveals that the city has gone well beyond its original brief. In a time of cutbacks should this matter? Opp Now co-founder Christopher Escher explores.

"The San Jose City Council is facing the unenviable task of cutting city budgets in response to the devastating health and financial impact of the coronavirus. As the City takes a look at what and how to cut, a review of the City's charter provides useful guidelines.

"In Section 807, the Charter establishes the following departments: Police, Fire, Public Works, Parks and Recreation, Planning, Personnel, Airport and Library. It is reasonable to view these departments and their functions as the City's "core" activities. While the Charter certainly allows the City to create new departments, notably, it says that these new departments can be created "from time to time." This might suggest that charter authors expected these new activities to come along infrequently, and not overwhelm the core functions.

"Section 800 further clarifies: "The Council may at any time abolish or discontinue any office, department,or agency other those those established by this charter." This clearly draws a distinction between those departments identified in the charter (Fire,Police,etc.) which cannot be abolished, and those departments that were added on later (Housing, for example) which can be eliminated. By extension, this might also suggest that the Council has much more leeway in cutting back non charter departments than charter departments. This reading certainly suggests that Charter authors privileged charter-identified functions as more important and permanent than the newer ones.

"Indeed, it is not a creative reading of the charter to interpret it as suggesting that in a time of cutbacks, non-charter departments and activities should receive more scrutiny than core functions, and in fact should be the first place the Council should look when beginning the difficult task of reducing expenses"

Read the whole charter here.

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