The role of

the city clerk isn't the only significant item that will be addressed

Council also

has to figure out how to structure the powers held by the mayor and the

city manager. Back when the charter was originally enacted when Peachtree

City was much smaller the role of a city manager was not specifically

addressed, City Attorney Rick Lindsey told council at its meeting Thursday.

The charter

gives significant power to the mayor, who is designated as the city's

chief executive officer. But, as Mayor Bob Lenox pointed out last week,

he delegates many of those duties to City Manager Jim Basinger.

Lindsey wants

to make sure the charter addresses the relationship between the mayor

and the city manager. He has suggested that the city manager be given

the general supervision powers of the city.

As it stands

right now "there is some overlapping" of the mayor's and city

manager's responsibilities, Lindsey said.

Another significant

change to the charter could be in the format of government that operates

the city. There are several different formats of city government, but

it is unclear exactly which Peachtree City currently is using.

One of the

two formats mentioned was the strong mayor format, which uses the mayor

as the executive branch to reports to council about city business. The

other format is council-manager, where the city manager acts as the executive

branch and reports to the mayor and council.

After a brief

discussion, council decided to go with the council-manager format, and

Lindsey agreed to begin working on wording that for the charter.

Lindsey also

had several other recommendations about changing the charter, including:

Rewording

the mayor's veto power, which can be overridden by three votes from remaining

council members.

Eliminating

the election of a provisional mayor pro tem, which would be created in

case the mayor and mayor pro tem can't fulfill their duties; in that case,

with two council members absent, council could not take any official action

since there would not be a quorum.

Eliminate

a three dollar "street tax" assessed to all residents between

18 and 50 years old, which may be illegal anyway.

Rewording

the charter to forbid the keeping of all livestock in the city and not

just cattle, hogs and goats.

For most of

the minor changes to the charter, it will not be necessary to get approval

of the state legislature. However, if the changes are significant, they

must be approved by the General Assembly, Lindsey said.