Measures involving campaign finance, city attorney oversight and historic district commission authority could cost up to $153,000 to place before voters
Three proposed changes to Folsom’s city charter are now headed toward a November vote after a lengthy second City Council debate Monday night that centered on legal exposure, campaign finance reform and the balance of power inside City Hall.
The Folsom City Council voted Monday evening to move forward with a package of charter amendments that could fundamentally alter the appointment of the city attorney, resolve a legal cloud hanging over the historic district commission, and raise the cap on individual campaign contributions for the first time in more than three decades.
The measures were the result of months of work by an ad hoc charter review committee that examined the city’s governing document section by section. The committee, established by the council in December 2025, met five times between March and May in publicly noticed Brown Act meetings before forwarding its recommendations to the council.
At a previous council meeting on May 12, the council directed staff to return with final recommendations on which potential amendments merited a public vote. During that earlier public hearing, 14 residents addressed the council, with many comments focused on a proposal involving voter approval requirements for city utility franchises.
The council had already eliminated five other proposed amendments earlier this month, including changes involving council term limits, automatic council pay increases tied to inflation, utility franchise authority and cleanup of obsolete charter language.
One of the most controversial rejected proposals would have removed voter approval requirements before city-owned utilities or enterprises could be franchised, contracted to or leased to non-governmental entities.
City Manager Bryan Whitemyer presented the remaining three items Monday: a change to how the city attorney is appointed, a fix to language governing city boards and commissions, and an increase to the $150 campaign contribution limit that voters established by initiative in 1994.
Whitemyer also delivered an unwelcome surprise: updated cost estimates from the Sacramento County elections office showed that placing a citywide ballot measure before voters could cost nearly $80,000 for the first question alone, significantly more than the roughly $61,000 the city paid for the 2024 election that included Measure G and two council district races.
Staff had based earlier projections on a per-voter cost of about 11 cents; the county’s May 7 estimate came in at $1.41 per registered voter for a citywide measure.
“We expected the election cost to be significantly lower than what was ultimately presented,” Whitemyer said. “We have had communications back and forth with the elections office.”
Staff estimated the three-measure package could cost roughly $115,250, though broader election-related expenses discussed Tuesday pushed estimates as high as $153,000.
The cost revelation loomed over much of the debate, with former Councilmember Tom Aceituno later warning that none of the measures would be cost-effective as standalone items.
The measure carrying the most immediate legal urgency involved section 4.07 of the city charter. That section currently states that all city boards and commissions “shall be only advisory to the council.”
The language became a flashpoint last year when a resident sued the city over a project approval by the historic district commission, arguing that the commission was issuing final decisions in violation of the charter. A Sacramento County Superior Court judge agreed, ruling that the commission’s authority was limited to making recommendations.
While the ruling applied only to a single project and is not binding precedent, the city attorney’s office warned that leaving the language unchanged would likely invite more lawsuits.
Rohrbough, who explored alternatives during the discussion, framed the issue bluntly.
“We are being sued and have been continually and seems like it’ll keep happening by a resident in the historic district,” Rohrbough said. “That is why this is essential at this moment, because we can’t see a pathway where this becomes streamlined, simpler. It’s only gonna become more complicated and more costly for the city.”
The council considered and rejected several possible workarounds.
Aquino asked whether the city could simply adopt an ordinance declaring that historic district commission decisions would remain final unless appealed, effectively restoring the old system. The city attorney advised that while the council likely had the authority to attempt that approach, it would “more likely than not” trigger another legal challenge.
Another option — folding the historic district commission into the planning commission — also failed to gain support. Kozlowski predicted that eliminating the historic commission altogether would not stop future litigation.
“I also don’t see that this stops if we fold the historic commission into the planning commission. I think it’s just those who are gonna spend more money on other lawsuits,” Kozlowski said. “It’s been tested in court, and we lost. And so now we need to adjust our charter in order to make that happen, or we have to hear all of the items here. And even then, I think we end up back in court until we put this on the ballot.”
The proposed amendment would strike the word “only” from the charter and clarify that the council may establish the powers and duties of commissions and committees through ordinance. It would also explicitly require committee members to be residents and registered voters of the city.
If approved by voters, the council could later restore final decision-making authority to the historic district commission through an ordinance.
Leary raised concerns that the current charter wording could potentially expose the city to additional lawsuits involving the planning commission and parks and recreation commission, both of which already issue final decisions on certain matters without direct council ratification.
“It sounded really unclear about whether this wording that was challenged in court would apply to the other commissions,” Leary said. “That could potentially create another scenario where the city is sued again over that same language.”
The city attorney acknowledged that legal opinions vary on that issue and said the council’s risk tolerance would likely determine whether additional commissions become targets of future litigation.
The second proposed amendment would alter section 4.03 of the charter by transferring the authority to appoint the city attorney from the city manager to the city council.
Raithel strongly advocated for the change and presented research showing that among California’s 482 incorporated cities, 469 give appointment authority to the council. Ten charter cities, including San Diego and San Francisco, elect their city attorney directly.
Only two charter cities — Folsom and Shafter — currently assign the responsibility to the city manager.
“I would argue that we might be even more of an outlier,” Raithel said.
After researching Shafter’s structure further, Raithel noted that the city uses a contract attorney arrangement that still gives the council regular oversight through contract approvals.
Folsom, by contrast, operates with an in-house legal team and no comparable formal review process.
“I do think the city attorney needs to be responsive to everybody and needs to be looking out for the interest of the city as a whole,” Raithel said. “It’s not the city council’s attorney. It’s not the city manager’s attorney. It is the city of Folsom’s attorney.”
Leary questioned how the process would work practically and whether councilmembers possessed the expertise needed to evaluate legal candidates.
Whitemyer, who previously worked in jurisdictions where the council appointed the attorney, said the process would likely resemble a city manager recruitment. The council could direct a member to oversee the search, retain an executive recruitment firm, conduct interviews in closed session and approve a contract publicly.
“The relationship and the communication that I have with the city attorney wouldn’t change. I don’t think it would change really for the councils. I don’t think you’d really notice,” Whitemyer said. “But what we’ve seen in other jurisdictions is if issues do arise, then the council does have the authority to intervene.”
The most heavily debated proposal involved campaign finance limits.
The charter review committee recommended increasing the city’s longstanding individual contribution limit from $150 to $750. After extensive debate, councilmembers ultimately settled on a proposed $500 cap — the same amount narrowly rejected by voters in 2018 by roughly 400 votes.
“I do think a $150 is way too low. It puts new candidates at a disadvantage,” Rohrbough said. “I think the recommendation from the committee was $750, and I definitely think that’s too high too far of a jump. I would like to be about 500.”
Leary, who has historically relied on smaller grassroots contributions in her campaigns, said the current cap makes it difficult for candidates to respond to heavy PAC-funded advertising campaigns.
“Hardly anybody donates $150. It’s a very low number of people that do that,” Leary said. “People will give you $5, $50, whatever, and rarely donate more than once.”
“The hit pieces are literally devastating to some candidates and are put together to garner suspicion amongst the public about certain candidates that the PACs are putting money towards,” she added. “Most candidates working through this on their own and raising the amounts that we have raised aren’t able to respond to those.”
Aceituno, who served on the charter review committee and also helped sponsor the original 1994 contribution-limit initiative, presented a detailed analysis of recent Folsom election spending using city clerk campaign finance filings.
According to Aceituno, candidates collectively raised about $48,000 in 2022 while PACs spent approximately $78,000, including $40,000 from a single donor.
In 2024, candidate fundraising climbed to $156,000, but independent expenditures reached $210,000, including six contributions exceeding $5,000 each.
“When you add up the score, PAC money generally dominates,” Aceituno said. “When an individual writes a check for as much as $150 and handed it to a candidate, they need a whole lot of their friends and neighbors to match that to get to a significant number. You wanna raise $15,000? You gotta get 100 people to contribute to you.”
Aceituno also noted that only 26 people donated the maximum allowable amount during both the 2022 and 2024 election cycles, while a handful of donors accounted for tens of thousands in PAC spending.
Adjusted for inflation, he said, the original 1994 limit would equal roughly $337 today.
He argued that increasing the limit would encourage more direct community fundraising and create greater accountability because candidate-controlled funds remain directly tied to the candidate.
“When you raise money as an individual candidate, you can decide how it’s spent,” Aceituno said. “Independent expenditures are not. According to the law, they cannot coordinate with the candidate. It has to be independent. So what’s the result? They get to go out and do all the dirty work.”
Still, Aceituno warned against placing the issue on the ballot alone given the newly revealed election costs.
“Even I would recommend you not do it as a standalone item,” he said. “If it’s part of the package, go ahead and do it, but it’s probably not worth $80,000 doing it today.”
Aquino challenged portions of Aceituno’s data, saying her own campaign experience suggested more than 26 contributors had donated the maximum amount during the 2022 cycle. Aceituno replied that he reviewed every filing available through the city clerk’s office and said the final tally surprised him as well.
Leary later requested that Aceituno’s presentation materials be formally attached to the staff report so residents could review the information themselves.
Following the discussion, Raithel made the final motion to place all three charter amendments before voters with the campaign contribution cap set at $500.
Raithel, Rohrbough, Kozlowski and Leary voted in favor of the motion, while Aquino voted no.
The council directed staff to return June 23 with proposed ballot language. Formal resolutions calling the election and authorizing ballot arguments are expected in July.
Under city requirements, the budget and related election measures must be finalized by June 30. A public hearing on the proposed fiscal year 2026-27 budget is scheduled for June 9, with final adoption possible that evening or at a subsequent council meeting.
If voters approve the charter amendments Nov. 3, the changes would take effect shortly afterward.
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