Porterville council declines charter change on department head power, asks city manager to use performance agreements

The Porterville City Council voted unanimously to forgo a charter amendment that would alter council authority over department heads and instead directed the city manager to develop performance agreements or contracts for department directors.

Vice Mayor McCurdy moved the recommendation and councilmembers seconded it as an in-house solution to the question of checks and balances over executive staff. Members cited the $30,000-per-measure cost of ballot items and said a performance-agreement approach would accomplish many of the council’s aims without an expensive charter campaign.

"That would be a good balance because now we're keeping it in-house, it's not in the charter, it achieves most of what we were trying to do with the balance, and it gives us a semblance of performance," Vice Mayor McCurdy said during the discussion.

Several council members emphasized the need to avoid heavy-handed charter changes that would weaken the city manager’s ability to manage day-to-day operations. The motion passed 5-0; the clerk announced the passage without individual roll-call names in the transcript excerpt.

Council directed the city manager to return with recommended contract language and implementation details; staff will present a timeline and proposed performance metrics to ensure the council can review and act without violating open-meeting requirements.