Sarasota City Commissioners on Monday will consider asking voters if city elections should be rescheduled to coincide with state and national elections, following up on a discussion officially started by Vice Mayor Suzanne Atwell in June but also tackling an issue that arises every other year after predictably low numbers of voters participate in city elections. "We have a chronically low turnout in March elections," Atwell said. "It's too important a problem to just keep this at the status quo when everyone else is moving forward and being more progressive."

Atwell believes voter turnout would be improved if city contests coincided with gubernatorial and presidential elections. She advocated having a first city election coincide with state primaries in late August and for runoffs to coincide with the general election in early November, and said elections should take place in even-numbered years. A change in election dates would require a change to the city charter. Critics of such a change say there is no guarantee turnout in city contests will increase, particularly during the initial August election, and that city issues may take a back seat to other state and federal matters when it comes to volunteer interest and media attention.

City Attorney Robert Fournier said he will bring the issue back before commissioners on Monday. A majority of the board could put a charter amendment up as a referendum, leaving the final decision to city voters. Fournier will ask commissioners on Monday whether a majority wants an ordinance drafted that could do just that. If so, the matter would need to come back to the commission in a public hearing and be approved before the referendum was scheduled for a citywide vote.

Fournier said if commissioners do want an ordinance drafted, he would need to know when commissioners want the question to go before voters. Commissioners could schedule the election to coincide with another election, such as the primary election in August 2016 or the general election in 2016, or they could pay to hold a special election. 

And before the issue is put before voters, commissioners will also need to lay out a schedule for phasing the change in, Fournier said. Right now, two city commissioners are scheduled to have terms expire in May 2017 and the other three commissioners have terms expiring in May 2019. "I want to avoid truncating anyone's term," Fournier said. To do so, Fournier believes, could open the city up to a legal challenge. The matter has been handled differently in other cities. For example, when Bradenton moved its city elections from odd- to even-numbered years, the terms of council members and the mayor were extended by a year.

Atwell said she is open to a discussion about any of the minor details, as well as the timing of elections.