A city charter could be placed in front of Fullerton voters as soon as November 2026.
A divided City Council has chosen the more expedient of two options to get a charter on a ballot. An option that also gives the council more control over writing the charter.
Councilmembers Shana Charles and Ahmad Zahra, outspoken critics of the chartering initiative since Mayor Fred Jung raised the idea earlier this year, voted against proceeding.
However, Jung and councilmembers Nick Dunlap and Jamie Valencia outnumbered them and the council voted to create an ad hoc committee to which each councilmember will soon appoint members to help them write a charter for voters to consider.
The council rejected an alternative to hold a city election where voters would have had the chance to elect 15 representatives to write the charter instead of the council and their appointees.
“For me, it’s really a no-brainer,” Dunlap said about moving the chartering process ahead. “I support moving this item forward, and I support continued discussion.”
His vote doesn’t commit him to accepting a charter down the road, and the council can later decide not to put a charter on the ballot.
“I think that we can form a committee where we can get, I think, a lot of good feedback from across our community to work on something that ultimately can really be good for our city for years to come,” Dunlap said.
About a quarter of cities in California have charters. These legal documents, essentially city constitutions, enable municipalities to retain greater control over some local concerns related to the city police force, city administration, city elections and bidding processes for public contracts.
Several Orange County cities operate under a charter, including its largest three — Anaheim, Irvine and Santa Ana — as well as Buena Park, Cypress, Huntington Beach, Los Alamitos, Newport Beach, Placentia and Seal Beach.
Some proponents of a charter have argued that adopting one would give Fullerton more leeway to push back against the state housing mandate, with which the city has struggled to comply.
But that point is fallible. Huntington Beach has tried that argument in unsuccessful lawsuits against the state.
Zahra argued that adopting a charter would carry risks, such as making it easier for Fullerton officials to dole out contracts to associates or to vendors who do not pay the state’s prevailing wage.
His colleagues did not answer him when he pressed them to give specific reasons for why the city should adopt the charter.
Valencia, the newest member of the council, having been elected last fall, said her support for a charter is rooted in her lack of faith in the status quo.
“I’m excited to see what a charter can do for our city and to change it up and get things going in a different trajectory than it has been for all of these years,” she said.