In a truth (almost) universally acknowledged, the Lake Helen City Charter is rife with outdated provisions, including language that is murky and unclear about the duties of commission members and city staff. 

Nearly every year, the City Commission bats around the idea of cleaning up the charter. Occasionally, charter amendments even get on the ballot, although so far, voters have failed to pass the changes.

One important factor is the language around the “city administrator,” a term somewhat unique to Lake Helen. 

Lake Helen has a long history of avoiding the city-manager form of government by having a city administrator — the only difference being that the commission alone has the rights to hire and fire city staff. 

For years, however, commissioners and residents have pointed out that the distinction is almost meaningless and leads to strange situations. At one point, City Commission meetings included hiring and disciplining dishwashers for a now-defunct restaurant.

And confusion over the hiring-and-firing process was the final straw for City Commissioner Roger Eckert, who led the charge to fire the now-former city administrator, Lee Evett.

“It’s just a name whether it’s administrator or manager,” Eckert said at the city commission’s July 11 meeting. “We still hold the reins of whatever the city administrator does,” Mayor Vernon Burton said.

One Lake Helen resident called the current hiring and firing process “archaic” and said the commission is violating the current charter. Others spoke on how they felt the proposed charter had issues, such as a lack of human resource plans if the current city administrator retained the sole power to hire and fire. 

City Commissioner Heather Rutledge proposed to leave the wording in the charter regarding city administrator rights to hire and fire until the commission had accurate time to survey the residents for their opinions, essentially disagreeing with moving forward with charter updates. 

Eventually, a heated discussion ended with the motion to change the language of the current city charter, which failed unanimously, scrapping any current plans of charter changes shortly. However, discussion on citizens voting on charter changes seemed hopeful. 

Anti-tethering ordinance back in the spotlight in Lake Helen

Lake Helen finalized its anti-tethering ordinance at the July 11 City Commission meeting. In the new law, it says an animal can only be tethered for two hours. However, the question of how you can enforce the time restraint has risen. 

 “You should be outside with the animal at all times… defining temporary could become an enforcement issue,”  City Attorney Scott Simpson noted.

Mayor Vernon Burton even added that the wording is not specific to the type of animal being tethered. 

“What if you have a cat?” Burton asked. 

 Because of the muddiness of the ordinance’s language, the City Commission agreed to rehear the issue at its Aug. 8 meeting.