Princeton’s home-rule charter committee is moving forward on drafting a document that it hopes will be ready for the city’s voters to decide this coming November.
I am hearing a bit of chatter that the city’s effort to craft a governing document that enables the city to govern itself might not pass voters’ muster when they cast their ballots. I do hope that chatter is wrong.
The basis for that chatter comes from the city’s misstep in setting up the committee. Voters gave the city permission to create a charter committee this past November. It didn’t have enough members. The city then disbanded the committee and formed a new one. The process delayed the municipal vote, which now is tentatively set for this fall.
I am going to bank on the notion put forth by Mayor Brianna Chacon, who told me that the city’s burgeoning population has brought in a fresh new set of opinions on this issue. It will need those outlooks to reverse four previous citywide rejections of previous charter proposals.
The dealbreaker in those elections was the annexation. The 2017 Texas Legislature took that issue off the table by enacting a law that requires cities to obtain property owners’ permission to annex their property. Thus, that argument is no longer valid.
I am going to hope that Princeton is able to enact a city charter so it becomes a home-rule city instead of a general law city that is governed by rules established by state statutes.
Indeed, the city’s population has exploded. Princeton now is home to an estimated 20,000-plus residents. That number is growing each day. I see it happening in my neighborhood, where houses are spring up like prairie weeds.
There is no end in sight.
I wish the home-rule panel as it slogs its way through the process of drafting a document that will enable Princeton, Texas, to set its own rules for how it governs itself.