City officials will receive help in developing a new charter from the Carl Vinson Institute of Government of the University of Georgia next week.

Representatives from the institute will pay a visit to Gray council members at their July 21 committee meeting to assist them with the development of the charter. The meeting will begin at 6 p.m. in City Hall and is open to the public as are all city committee meetings.

Gray’s current charter was adopted in 1911.

A citizens’ charter advisory committee has been working toward the development of a new charter since its appointment in December of 2006. At the time of their appointment it was suggested by Mayor Jason Briley to ask for guidance from the institute in order to fast-track the process.

After speaking to a representative of the institute, Briley estimated the committee would need three meetings with a facilitator at a cost of $975 per day with the goal of having the charter ready for adoption by the Georgia General Assembly before the end of the session in 2007.

The council, however, opted to give committee members time to work on the charter on their own with guidance from City Attorney Joan Harris.

The decision to adopt a new city charter was actually made at the April 3, 2006, council meeting following the firing of the Gray police chief and city clerk in March. A citizens group approached council members at the meeting about the need for an updated form of government, and the councilmen voted unanimously to begin the process.

Briley brought the issue to the council again Nov. 6, 2006, and the members unanimously adopted a resolution prepared by Harris to develop a new city charter. The resolution provided for the appointment of a citizen charter advisory committee with each councilman selecting someone from his district to serve on the committee.

Committee members Bill Boyd, Lee Arthur James, Jerrold Pitts, Gus Wilson, and Lehman Wood were named the following month, and Rooster Cogburn was the final committee member selected.

The committee met diligently beginning in February of 2007. Boyd came before the council at their April 21, 2008 committee meeting stating that the committee had done all it could and asked the council members to take the next step.

During their meetings, committee members looked at the charters of several Georgia cities and incorporated changes to design a charter for Gray. The most recent draft from the committee was dated Dec. 5, 2007, and includes a city manger as the committee was originally charged by the council.

The new draft does not change the number of council members and retains the positions of mayor pro tem and mayor. That means Gray’s weak-mayor form of government is not changed, and the mayor will not have a vote except in the case of a tie. With five council members, a tied vote would not often occur.

The new charter appeared headed to a back burner in May when Harris questioned the feasibility of funding the position of city manager and the benefits attached, but the issue was put back on track at a committee meeting later that month.

Harris reported at the June council meeting that she talked to Harry Hayes with the Carl Vinson Institute of Government and got an estimate of what it would take to have the charter ready to send to the General Assembly next January. Gray will hold an election of mayor and council in November of 2009 and the goal is to have the new charter in place before the election.

The city attorney said Hayes proposed four meetings with council members between July 1 and Dec. 31, and one pre-meeting to agree on a contract. An estimate of the charges is $8,600.

Harris said she has already sent a draft of the proposed charter to the institute.