Should Our Village become a Charter City?
Carmel-by-the-Sea is a General Law Municipality in the State of California. There are pros & cons to becoming a Charter City that can increase Local Control.
A recent (April 2024) court case tied to Housing Legislation SB9 is applicable only to Charter Cities. See our CRA Local Control page for more background.
To learn more about becoming a Charter City - consider these sources
What does it take to become a Charter City?
To become a charter city, a city must adopt a charter.
There are two ways to adopt a charter:
- The city’s voters elect a charter commission. The commission has the responsibility of drafting and debating the charter.
- The governing board of the city, on its own motion, drafts the charter.
In either case, the charter is not adopted by the city until it is ratified by a majority ballot vote of the city's voters.
- As of January 21, 2020, 125 of California's 478 cities are charter cities. HERE is an earlier listing showing 121 Charter Cities - published by CACities.org.
- City Charters, in those cities where citizens have elected to have charters, determine how a city is organized and, in some circumstances, give cities certain home rule prerogatives even in the face of conflicting state statutes.
- A county can be a Charter County as well. 14 of our 58 counties that are Charter Counties. As of 4/2024 they incllude: Counties with charters include Alameda, Butte, El Dorado, Fresno, Los Angeles, Orange, Placer, Sacramento, San Bernardino, San Diego, San Francisco, San Mateo, Santa Clara, and Tehama.
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