The City of Bremerton Charter is the basic document by which all residents of the city are governed.

Additional codes and ordinances, per the Bremerton Municipal Code (BMC), have been set in place to build upon, compliment or expand the foundation that the city charter lays out and provides.

Article I, Section 5 states, “The Mayor and Council shall be subject to the control and direction of the people at all times by means of the initiative, referendum and recall provided for in this Charter.”

Any changes to the charter require a majority vote of the people via a charter amendment placed on the ballot.

Article III, Section 18, City Auditor states: “There shall be an Auditing Committee consisting of two Council members and an independent Certified Public Accountant to be designated by Council, and two Bremerton residents selected by the designated members of the Auditing Committee.

“The Auditing Committee shall appoint a City Auditor who shall serve at the pleasure of the Committee. The city auditor shall only be removed by the majority vote of the entire membership of the Committee sitting as a whole”.

Currently, Mayor Patty Lent is looking to make an end-run around the city charter by eliminating the budget for the city auditor position, thus eliminating the position itself.

In 2013, an attempt to put forth a charter amendment to eliminate the city auditor position never gained the steam it needed to move forward.

If the citizens of Bremerton are not interested in moving forward on a charter change, then that decision needs to be accepted and respected.

There are several issues I see with the current city auditor position.

Number one, do we have the right person for the job?

Number two, does the audit committee have what it needs to be truly independent and operate without prejudice?

Number three, where are the mechanisms within the system that require the findings of any audits to be publicly addressed by the administration and the council and either be dismissed with reason, or corrected with a full and complete plan, or policy change put into place so that the same issues do not keep happening again, and again, and again?

I would sure like to see these issues about the city auditor corrected, clarified and or addressed.

Maybe a change is needed. I am keeping an open mind on that.

However, any change to this charter mandated position needs to be decided upon by the vote of the people as is our collective right per the existing document that the mayor and the council have sworn to uphold and defend.

The “run around the end” that is currently happening via the funding or not funding of a charter mandated position via the budget is not an acceptable or respectable method of handling this.

It is a complete disservice to the charter that governs and protects all of us from exactly this type of deliberate subversion.

Colleen Smidt is a longtime resident of Bremerton who writes weekly about community and political matters. Email her at colleensmidt@gmail.com.