The much discussed and debated charter amendment to lower the age for council members to 18 died at last night’s City Council session. Council members voted 6-2 opposing the proposed amendment. District 4 council member Marcus Afzali, the bill’s sponsor and District 1 council member Patrick Wojahn only voted in favor of the bill.
Before the session started at 7:00pm, council member Wojahn sent an email to his constituents announcing that he and Afzali did not want to move further with this ill-fated bill. “Essentially, we realized that the amendment is very unlikely to pass, so we’ve decided not to push it any more. The public hearing will still go forward, because we cannot move to table the amendment until the official meeting at 8 pm.” – wrote Mr. Wojahn.
The Council was about to take another motion to raise the minimum age for council candidacy to 25. Mayor Andy Fellows broke a 4-4 tie to reject District 2 Councilman Bob Catlin’s proposal that no resident younger than 25 be allowed to run for elected office in the city.
More coverages of last night’s debate can be found here in the Diamondback and the Patch.