Houghton City Charter Amendments Proposed

The city of Houghton is in the process of updating its charter.

A commission reviewed the current charter beginning in 2012 and found 22 items that needed to be updated.

The charter was written in the 1960’s.

Not all of the amendments can be changed at once…so the city selected five of them to put on a future ballot for residents to vote on.

Those items are:

–To define a council vacancy and to allow more time to fill a council vacancy
–To allow the council to set their organizational meeting and procedures and to comply with the Open Meetings and Freedom of Information Act
–A change to the total maximum allowable tax levy from based on assessed value to taxable value in accordance with state law
–Extend payment of summer taxes to September 14th without penalty and penalties due after that date will be charged a penalty of one percent per month without regard to fractions of the month.
–Unpaid real property taxes will be turned over to the county for collection.

Many of the proposed changes are being made to comply with existing state law.

The amendments are expected to appear on the May 2016 ballot.