Davenport Charter Amendments: What You Need to Know

In lighting fast speed, the 2024 Davenport, Florida, Charter Review Committee read our city’s Charter, reviewed it, and recommended changes. (I’ll take the credit here for telling them to get it done in the first place.) Then in January 2025, commissioners had their proposed changes placed on our local ballots. What was put out by the committee will be boiled down into four amendments that will be brought before voters on Tuesday, April 1, for their consideration. They are as follows:

• Charter Amendment #1 Terms for Board of Commissioners – Section 2.01 – Increasing the amount of years that our commissioners can serve on our Board. Terms will increase from three to four years. Terms of service will increase from two to three consecutive periods, allowing our Commish to serve 12 years each. They currently serve six.
• Charter Amendment #2 Super Majority Vote – Section 3.01 – Changing the number of votes needed to terminate or fire the city manager and/or the city clerk. The number of votes would change from three to four commissioners needed to terminate the person in either position.
• Charter Amendment #3 Citizen-led Petitions – 8.02 – To reflect the increase of population in our area, initiating citizen-led petitions will increase from five to ten people needed.
• Charter Amendment #4 Repeal Sewer Limitation – Section 9.05 – To remove any limitations by the city to install sewer and to allow residents to hook up to sewer that may be available to them.

Those are the four amendments being proposed to voters with an overview of each one. (For the details of each change, see the PDF at the bottom of this post.) To bring perspective to each of these items to you, my reader, below are my own explanations, history, and recommendations for each of these amendments.

Charter Amendment #1 – Terms – Vote No

This proposal, and others like it, make it into the Charter Review Committee’s recommendations every time they convene, no matter who is on the committee. It’s been a chronic problem for well over 20 years. (Don’t forget that number.) It is a repeating proposal or amendment on our ballots that has led to inordinate years of stays on the commission. For example, Mayor Peter Rust served Davenport for 17 years. (1992-2002, 2006-2013.) Commish Bobby Lynch has served 22 years (23 in 2025), without interruption since 2002. Those inordinate stays did not have favorable results either.

There was a time of increasing distrust and apathy towards our municipal government body back when I arrived in Davenport some 13 years ago. I call it Davenport’s Decade of Decay (2007–2017). The city pool was not adequately maintained. Sidewalks, streets, and even the city’s beloved water tower, also went into disrepair. Folks didn’t take casual walks around the neighborhood because those sidewalks had become so bad. And, I even witnessed a wheelchair bound resident travel daily on Suwannee Avenue from his home in Jamestown to the post office, again, because the sidewalks were so bad. Even the grass behind City Hall was two feet tall. Eventually, both the pool and water tower were removed, moving Davenport a heaping load backwards in progress and historic value. (Apparently the city manager at that time was not using money made from the tower for the tower’s maintenance. I don’t believe that Davenport commissioners ever found out what that money was used for. I’m not sure they even ever looked.)

But, let’s not forget Tom Fellows, another former commissioner who is now campaigning to sit on the Davenport Board for his eighth term. He sat on the Board for seven terms, uninterrupted, between 2004 and 2024, twenty years. Twenty years!

Now how were these three dudes, Peter Rust, Bobby Lynch, and Tom Fellows, able to stay on the Board of Commissioners for so long, literally decades, when the City of Davenport actually has a term limits rule in its Charter?

According to The Four Corners Sun article written by his daughter, “Fellows was first elected in 2004. Davenport does have term limits, but due to changes in the city’s charter regarding service terms over the past 20 years, Fellows was able to serve uninterrupted for 20 years. He served two four-year terms, two three-year terms and three two-year terms.”

This ploy also discourages other qualified candidates from running. It needs to stop.

It appears that, over the decades, changes have been repeatedly and too often made to this particular section of the Charter. And, every time, constituents vote for the Board’s recommended changes. What they want is a Yes vote. Let’s not do that again.

Let’s invoke our own term limit, people of Davenport. Vote “No” on this amendment to ensure that the current slate of folks who are on our Board won’t stay in their seats for such outrageous stays. A democratic Republic depends on our politicians not making careers out of our tax dollars. (If they want to make political careers, they can run for county, state, and federal offices.)

Charter Amendment #2 Super Majority – Vote No

This is common political tactic, that is, to force voters to strive for a super-majority to win. It led to the loss of abortion rights in Florida when a super-majority vote, or 60%, was required. Voters lost the amendment by three points. In the end, 57% was not considered the majority vote, thus leading to the loss of civil rights for Floridian women in the area of healthcare. (1984 anyone?)

Here’s a little history here on how this amendment got onto our future ballot. The Super Majority proposal was suggested by former commissioner and Charter Review Committee member Tom Fellows, father of current commissioner Donna Fellows-Coffey. It seems that Tom has a high regard for both of the potentially affected by this proposal: Kelly Callihan, the city’s manager, and Rachel Castillo-Young, the city’s vestige of the previous administration, and who did not blow the whistle on what the city manager was or was not doing with taxpayer money and complaints about city services during Davenport’s Decade of Decay. It appears that Tom regards them so much that he wants to make it nearly impossible for voters to get rid of them, that is, if termination is called for. (Rachel’s husband, Jerry Young, also served on the Charter Review Committee that came up with this proposal.)

Back in December 2024, as was expected, Donna spoke out in strong favor of her father’s proposal. She did this during a Commissioners’ meeting. It’s duly noted that she failed to tell the audience that this was her father’s proposal.

Had she not been appointed to the Board (she wasn’t elected; she “ran unopposed”), would anyone else have defended Tom’s proposal? Probably not. But she felt the need to speak up about this particular proposal, to tell the other commissioners and the audience of constituents at the meeting that she was undeniably in support of it.

Donna argued that the super majority is necessary to ensure that the folks occupying these positions “are not terminated willy-nilly.” That they be given “job security” in these two positions, because this benefit will attract qualified candidates in the future who may want these positions.

Now, now, Donna. Unless you think the city is not currently attracting qualified candidates, this argument rings totally hollow. I have heard Donna praising our very qualified and motivated staff all the time at commissioners meetings, so, maybe, just maybe, Donna’s argument simply isn’t true. Davenport attracts great candidates for most of its positions, and it is because of all our new staff that we were able to pull ourselves out of the Davenport Decade of Decay. It was because of our current city manager, Kelly Callihan, that we were able to pull ourselves out of the damage done during that whole decade.

In real-life terms, it seems that if either of these two, high-level city staff displeases even one commissioner, they should be gone. (It really is hard to piss off a politician.) Three commissioners? Quite definitely gone. And, four?

Really?

If it takes four commissioners to get rid of one city staff person, that is not job security. That’s a lightbulb joke, and it is tantamount to a job for life. If passed, these would become the kind of jobs that would encourage the kind of leadership that we had during Davenport’s Decade of Decay, when everything turned bad in this little city, when it is alleged that taxpayer money was not being used for taxpayer things.

Linda Robinson said it best when she brought up the last time the commissioners had to terminate staff. Back then, there were three, not four, commissioners’ votes needed to boot. In a singularly sad night in 2017, the commissioners voted to oust the city manager. If we had required a fourth vote back then, the City of Davenport today would still be up to its eyeballs in bad policies, neglect, misuse of funds, and lack of accountability.

Vote “No” on this proposal. It will ensure that the city never goes back to the old days of a do-nothing Board of Commissioners and an even worse administration that they were supposed to be watching back during Davenport’s Decade of Decay.

Charter Amendment #3 Citizen-led Petitions – Vote Yes

There is nothing to be said but “Vote Yes” on this proposal. Since the last time the Charter Review Committee met, the population of Davenport has exploded from a few thousand people to over 20,000. This change is meant to recognize this explosion and ensure that petitions that come before voters really have significant support by constituents.

Charter Amendment #4 Repeal Sewer Limitation – Vote Yes

This section of the Charter is the most controversial of them all, as was noted by the commissioners on the night of Monday, December 16, 2024. The purpose of this amendment is to completely remove Section 9.05 of the Charter. In December, community activists complained that its removal would lead to “huge hardships” for the people. What these huge hardships were was not explained but word is that these folks believed in a lie, which is what brought us Section 9.05 in the first place. The lie?

The following audio is then-Commissioner Tom Fellows telling a former commissioner (male), that he was a “bald-faced liar” and “lying to the people for years.” (02/09/2019.) It was all about Section 9.05.

Yes, back when Section 9.05 was introduced to the voters of Davenport, folks were told that if they didn’t vote for this amendment, the city would be able to “force residents” to bear the costs to replace their septic systems and connect to the city’s more modern sewer system, which hadn’t been installed in the community. There wasn’t even a plan in place nor even the concept of a plan.

The lie was that no one was going to be forced to do anything. As a result, the city lost tons of grant money that was being offered to modernize Davenport, and we got Section 9.05, which never did anything more than prevent economic development. For decades now, businesses haven’t been opening in the downtown Davenport area primarily because we lack sewer. And, we lack sewer because of Section 9.05.

Although the city manager at the time was told to do something about this matter, such as communicate with the residents that the lie existed, online and by mail, she did nothing. As for the city forcing residents to get on sewer? It was complete nonsense. If we only had an ordinance making it illegal to lie to the voters of Davenport, Section 9.05 may never have happened.

What the Committee Missed

The only problem with all of the work done by the Charter committee is that they missed two things. Both are related to running political campaigns in the city.

First

The reason for Amendment #3 Citizen-led Petitions was to address the issue of massive population increase in the city, but they did not address the one thing that an explosion in population does to another area, namely, what it does to prospective candidates for the Board of Commissioners.

Candidates for the Board are given only four days to qualify for the elections and to start their campaign for office. They are given only six weeks to campaign. This stipulation is included in the Charter’s Article VII. Section 7.02. – Nominations. “The signed petition shall be filed with the Clerk any time after 12:00 p.m. (Noon) of the fiftieth (50^th ) day prior to the election, but not later than 12:00 p.m. (Noon) of the forty-sixth (46^th ) day prior to the election.” This one sentence really needed a looksee by the committee members.

The road to entry onto the Davenport Board of Commissioners is like a brick wall that one must smash through with all one’s might, working to the bone, everyday and Sundays, for two months to reach a population of over 20,000. An average campaign can take upwards of $3-$5k to win (maybe more). If you don’t have that kind of money, as is the case with most Davenport voters, you don’t win.

The alternative is to make cozy with rich friends. Unfortunately, there aren’t that many of them in our area. There are businesses, though, with business leaders, who for the most part have money.

Regardless of how you run your effort, you have to organize, fundraise, and campaign all at the same time. There is now even a fee to qualify. Clearly, the Board needs to go back to the drawing board when it comes to this section of the Charter. The dates need to be expanded and our prospective electoral candidates give much more time for everything they have to do during those times.

Second

Although this has happened more than once in Davenport, our Board of Commissioners seem to have lazy eyes. (Certainly don’t want to suggest anything nefarious here.) The gist is that we have had politicians campaigning not only outside the designated weeks for campaigning but also outside the qualification week, which literally means these folks were actually not qualified to run for any public office in Davenport at the times they were campaigning.

There is neither a rule nor a penalty for folks who commit this quite clearly unethical action. Every time it happens, it is always someone who has been on the commission before. In other words, former incumbents are always the ones who commit this action. It is inside knowledge. It is part of what makes up incumbent advantage `round these parts.

The latest one to do this is our good friend, ex-commish Tom Fellows. (Why does that name keep coming up?) As you’ll see in the photo below, Tom Fellows had a booth at the city’s BBQ Fest with his picture, looming large.

Just a side note, but that picture … It does not look like him today. Very old photo.

This photo was taken two days before the start of qualifying for office in Davenport, and four days before Tom Fellows filed to qualify on February 12, 2025. As well, Fellows ran some pretty expensive ads in the hyperlocal newspaper, the Four Corners Sun. His ads appeared in print on February 12th. Yep, you saw that right. His print ads went out the day he was qualified to run. (My estimate is that Fellows must have contacted the Sun about two weeks ahead of qualifying.) Unless you’ve been on the commission, you probably didn’t know that you could do that here. Clearly, Tom Fellows not only knew but he did that here.

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Clearly, a future Charter Review Committee needs to write itself note that says, address the issues raised in Darhlene’s article. Our elections don’t need to be equal; they need to be equitable. Two things: give our political candidates more time to campaign and allow campaigning only during the campaign season.

If you got this far, thank you for reading Darhlene.com. Please subscribe at the top-right side of this page for more Davenport news and alternative opinions.

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Voters get to decide on the charter changes on Tuesday, April 1, 2025. This is a ballot with decisions that will impact residents and homeowners personally. Don’t you owe it to yourself to vote?

Below is the document of proposed changes to the Charter.