What the 2026 Bozeman charter gets right

Why an opposition campaign publishes this page

A package deal is only unfair if the package is worth something

The 2024–2026 Local Government Study Commission did real work over two years and adopted its final report and amended charter 5–0 on August 6, 2026. Several of its changes fix things the 2006 charter got wrong. Pretending otherwise would be dishonest, and it would misdescribe the actual problem.

The problem is not that the draft is bad. The problem is that it is one ballot question. A voter who wants the four-year at-large mayor, the independent Municipal Court article and the compensation board has no way to take them without also taking Article VIII. That is the objection, and it only makes sense if the rest of the draft is worth wanting.

The improvements

Seven changes we would vote for on their own

These are in the base charter. They take effect if the amended charter is adopted, regardless of how anyone votes on the sub-options.

1. 01

   A real mayor, elected to a real four-year term

   Proposed charter

   §2.03(b)

   “Mayor Elected At Large. At a regular city election, the voters of the city shall elect a mayor at large for a term of four years.”

   What it fixes: Under the 2006 charter the person elected mayor “shall serve as deputy mayor and a commissioner for the first two years of his or her term, and mayor for the balance” (2006 charter §2.03(b)). Bozeman has been electing a mayor who does not become mayor for two years. The draft ends that apprenticeship. This is in the base charter, not a sub-option. Under §11.04(a) it first applies to the 2029 city election, with that mayor seated in January 2030.

2. 02

   A vice mayor who is chosen, not queued

   Proposed charter

   §2.03(c)

   “In January following each regular city election, the commission shall appoint a vice mayor from among its members who shall serve and function as mayor during the absence of the mayor. The vice mayor shall serve a term of two years…”

   What it fixes: The deputy mayor position is eliminated and replaced with a vice mayor the commission appoints from its own members every two years. Succession is also cleaned up: under §2.06(a), if the mayor dies, resigns, is removed or is permanently incapacitated, “the vice mayor shall succeed as mayor until the next municipal election” rather than for the whole remainder of the term, as the 2006 charter allowed. Voters get the seat back sooner. Per §11.04(b), vice mayor selection begins at the first commission meeting in January 2028.

3. 03

   The Municipal Court gets its own article

   Proposed charter

   Article IV, §4.01: Judicial Branch

   “Pursuant to the Constitution and the laws of Montana, the municipal court exercises judicial authority on behalf of the city. The court, in exercising its judicial authority, shall act separately and independently from the legislative and executive branches.”

   What it fixes: The 2006 charter mentions the court in one sentence, filed under Article IV, Departments, Offices and Agencies: “There shall be a municipal court as prescribed by state law” (§4.05). The draft moves it out of the list of departments into a judicial article of its own and states the separation expressly. The study commission approved it unanimously on April 30, 2026, at the request of Municipal Court Judge Colleen Harrington. A city that writes its own constitution should say out loud that its judges are not a department. We would vote for this by itself.

   And note the symmetry, because it cuts both ways. The 2006 charter filed the Municipal Court (§4.05) and the Inter-Neighborhood Council (§4.06) in the same article, one after the other. The draft lifts both out and gives each its own. That is a genuine elevation for both, but an elevation within the charter, not an entry into it. We count the court’s as an improvement and we say so. Our objection to the INC’s is not that it was promoted; it is the four new duties that came with the promotion.

4. 04

   Commissioners stop setting their own pay unadvised

   Proposed charter

   §2.04: Compensation; Expenses

   “The city commission shall appoint a city compensation board to recommend to the city commission the annual salaries of the mayor and commissioners. The compensation board shall include: two commissioners; the city’s financial director; and four Bozeman residents who are registered voters and have their primary residence in the city. The two commissioners and financial director shall serve as non-voting, ex-officio members. Meetings of the compensation board shall be open to the public and publicly noticed.”

   Be precise about this one: the compensation board recommends. It does not set. The commission still “shall adopt salaries for the mayor and commissioners by ordinance prior to the filing period for the next municipal election” (§2.04). What changes is that the recommendation now comes from four voting residents in a publicly noticed meeting, with the two commissioners and the finance director present but unable to vote. Two provisions that drew public criticism were deleted before adoption: a formula tied to area median income, and a clause setting commissioners’ work hours. The commission listened.

5. 05

   Appointed commissioners have to face the public first

   Proposed charter

   §2.06(c)

   “A vacancy in the city commission shall be filled within 60 days of the occurrence of the vacancy by vote of the existing city commissioners. Commissioners must hold a public forum with applicants for the vacant commission position. This appointment will be in place until the next municipal election.”

   What it fixes: The 2006 charter says only that a vacancy “shall be filled for the remainder of the unexpired term, pursuant to state law” (2006 charter §2.06(c)). No forum, no window in the charter itself. The study commission described the change as extending the fill window from 30 days to 60 and adding a required public engagement step. Both halves matter: more time, and an open hearing before an unelected commissioner is seated. The draft also caps the appointment at the next municipal election rather than the full unexpired term.

6. 06

   An auditor who cannot quietly become a vendor

   Proposed charter

   §6.09: Independent Audit

   “No accountant or firm may provide any other services to the city during the time it is retained to provide independent audits to the city; however, the city commission may waive this requirement by a unanimous vote at a public meeting.”

   Be precise about the delta. The bar on the auditor selling other services is not new: it is already in the 2006 charter at §5.09, in almost the same words. What changed is one word in the escape hatch: the 2006 charter let the commission waive it “by a majority vote at a public meeting,” and the draft raises that to unanimous. A waiver now takes every commissioner, in public. Small, real, and in the right direction.

7. 07

   Board seats get advertised on a vacancy, and candidates have to actually live here

   Proposed charter

   §8.05(c)(1) and §2.02(a)

   §8.05(c)(1): board members are appointed “following public solicitation advertised at least twice annually or when a vacancy arises.”

   §2.02(a): “Only registered voters… whose principal residence is in the City of Bozeman, shall be eligible to hold the office of commission member or mayor.”

   Two modest ones, stated honestly. The twice-yearly advertising requirement is not new: the 2006 charter already required “public solicitation through the newspaper advertised not less than twice annually” (§4.07). The draft adds the words “or when a vacancy arises,” so a seat that opens in March no longer waits for the next scheduled round, and it drops “through the newspaper,” which had quietly tied the city to a shrinking medium. On eligibility, “principal residence” is likewise a restoration of the 2006 charter’s own language (§2.02(a)) after a draft version loosened it; former study commissioner Brian Close raised the false-residency risk and the commission put it back. Restoring good language is still getting it right.

Also worth namingThe preamble now affirms “human rights” among the city’s core values, added on a 4–1 vote on May 27, 2026. It is symbolic. Preambles are supposed to be. We have no objection to it.

The complete list

Every substantive change the draft makes

Not only the flattering ones. If a change is neutral we say so, and the section we oppose is in the same table as everything else.

If adoptedThe study commission certified that, if approved on November 3, 2026, the amended charter and any approved sub-options “shall become effective on July 1, 2027, and implementation will follow as written in Article XI.” The commission-manager form of government is retained either way.

The sub-options

Three more questions, and we take no position on any of them

Below the charter question your ballot carries three separate sub-options. They are real choices about how Bozeman elects its commission, and they are not what this campaign is about. We are not asking anyone to vote a particular way on them.

The mayor stays elected at large under every combination. If voters approve a larger commission and/or wards, both take effect at the 2029 municipal election: the redistricting timeline makes 2027 impractical.

Our position on the sub-optionsNone. Whether Bozeman should have five commissioners or seven, wards or at-large seats, ward-only voting or citywide voting, are legitimate questions on which reasonable Bozeman residents disagree. This campaign is about one section of the base charter. We are not going to use it to smuggle in a preference on anything else.

The pivot

Every good change on this page remains proposable on its own

This is the whole argument, and it is not rhetorical. Rejecting the package does not repeal these reforms or send them back to the drawing board. They stay available, by three separate routes, none of which requires another two-year study commission.

Timing

What we can and can’t promise about timing

A campaign that tells you what it does not know is worth more than one that sounds certain about everything. So: we can tell you the reforms remain proposable. We cannot tell you when, and anyone who gives you a year is guessing.

What is settled

The Commission may propose a charter amendment by ordinance. MCA 7-3-103(2)(b) says so, and MCA 7-3-149(1)(b) requires the governing body to call an election “upon… adoption of a local government ordinance pursuant to 7-3-103(2)(b).” The proposed charter’s own §10.01(2) lists the same route, in the same words the 2006 charter uses at §8.01(2). No study commission and no petition drive is required.

Voters may also propose an amendment by petition (MCA 7-3-103(2)(a); draft §10.01(4)), and a study commission question returns on a roughly ten-year cycle, about a decade after Bozeman’s June 4, 2024 vote, with the governing body allowed up to a further year to call it.

Rejection changes nothing else. MCA 7-3-149(4)(d): “If the electors disapprove the proposed new form of local government, amendments, or consolidation plan, the local government retains its existing form.” Nothing lapses and nothing is triggered. The 2006 charter simply stays in force.

What is not settled

Whether MCA 7-3-155’s three-year moratorium applies to a later amendment question. The statute bars conducting “an election on the question of changing the form of local government, charter, or consolidation plan… again for 3 years.” It does not say whether a single amendment counts.

There is no Montana Attorney General opinion and no case law construing it, and the text cuts both ways. The neighbouring MCA 7-3-104 imposes its own three-year bar on changing the form of government but expressly adds that “the voters may vote on amendments to the alternative form” and so carves amendments out explicitly. MCA 7-3-155 contains no parallel carve-out. A court could read that silence either as deliberate or as immaterial. We do not know which, and we are not going to pretend we do.

If the moratorium appliesThe earliest a follow-up charter question could reach voters would be November 2029, not 2027. We are telling you that because it is the less convenient reading and you are entitled to it. If the city attorney, the Secretary of State’s elections division or a court settles the question, we will publish the answer here whichever way it goes.

And then the turn, which is the honest reason this uncertainty belongs on the page rather than in a footnote: a limit on revisiting the charter is an argument for caution, not for haste. If a flawed charter is just as hard to repair as a good reform is to revive, the safe move is not to adopt a document you have doubts about. The one decision that is fully reversible on November 3 is the decision not to adopt.

Questions

Straight answers

What does the 2026 Bozeman charter actually change?

The base charter elects the mayor at large for a full four-year term, eliminates the deputy mayor in favour of a commission-appointed vice mayor, moves the Municipal Court into its own judicial article, creates a compensation board that recommends commissioner salaries, sets a 60-day commission-vacancy window with a required public forum, restores the “principal residence” eligibility standard, raises the auditor-waiver threshold from a majority to a unanimous vote, adds “or when a vacancy arises” to board advertising, adds “human rights” to the preamble, and adds four new duties around the Inter-Neighborhood Council in Article VIII.

Does the 2026 charter create the Inter-Neighborhood Council?

No. The Inter-Neighborhood Council has been in Bozeman’s charter since 2006. The 2006 charter §4.06(d) states: “There is hereby established an InterNeighborhood Council to be composed of representatives selected by each recognized neighborhood association.” A designated city staff liaison (§4.06(e)), the INC’s forum role, its recommendations to the commission, its bylaws and its vacancy rules are all already there. What Article VIII of the 2026 draft adds are duties the INC never had: mandatory consultation during the formative stages of citywide efforts, a mandatory written response from the commission and city manager, an exemption from the code of ethics, a mandate to expand the program city-wide, and the upgrade of the liaison from “a staff member” to a “full-time, fully dedicated” one.

Is the four-year at-large mayor one of the sub-options?

No. §2.03(b) is in the base charter. If the amended charter is adopted, the mayor is elected at large for four years regardless of how the ward sub-options come out. Under §11.04(a) it first applies to the 2029 city election.

Does this campaign oppose wards, or a bigger city commission?

No. We take no position on any of the three sub-options. They are separate questions on the same ballot, and they only take effect if the amended charter itself is adopted.

If the charter is rejected, are the good changes gone?

No. Under Montana Code 7-3-103(2)(b) the City Commission may propose a charter amendment by ordinance, voters may propose one by petition, and a study commission question returns on a roughly ten-year cycle. The draft’s own §10.01 lists the same routes. Any single reform can be put to voters on its own, without Article VIII attached.

How soon could a rejected reform come back to the ballot?

We do not know, and we will not guess. Montana Code 7-3-155 provides that an election on the question of changing the form of local government, charter, or consolidation plan “may not be conducted again for 3 years,” and whether that bar reaches a later, different amendment question is unresolved: there is no Montana Attorney General opinion and no case law construing it. If it applies, the earliest a follow-up question could reach voters is November 2029. That uncertainty is itself a reason for caution: a charter adopted with a flaw in it may be just as hard to fix as a good reform is to revive.

When would the amended charter take effect if it passes?

The study commission certified an effective date of July 1, 2027, with implementation following Article XI. Ward boundaries and any expansion of the commission would apply at the 2029 municipal election.