Temple’s planned vote on a proposed new city charter will be delayed until later in the month to allow input from city residents.

A proposed charter meant to make the city’s governing power more equitable among the city’s elected officials has been a source of debate in Temple since 2005. For the last four years, a vote on the proposal has failed to reach the unanimous consent of the council required by local legislators to move forward with a local bill, but all members of the council have voiced unanimous support for the measure this year.

The Temple City Council tabled the latest charter vote Monday until after a public hearing can be held on Monday, Jan. 11, at 6 p.m. in City Hall. A vote on the proposal is scheduled to be held during a special called meeting on Monday, Jan. 19, at 6:30 p.m.

Public hearings have been held several times over the past five years — some with a high volume of public unrest and others relatively quiet — but the last public hearings were held two years ago.

City Attorney Cynthia Daley said that the city wasn’t required by law to hold another public hearing, but it may be a good idea due to the fact that it has been awhile since the last one was held.

Currently, Temple’s outdated city charter would fall into the category of a “strong-mayor,” meaning that the mayor is charged with carrying out many functions of the city, including sole discretion in the hiring and firing of employees. However, officials say the new charter will be a “strong-council” with the official addition of a city administrator to handle many of the day-to-day operations of the city at the discretion of the council. Temple already has a city administrator in place, but the mayor still has much of the control. The proposed charter would put many of the current functions of the mayor to a vote of the council, which would then be passed on to the city administrator for action.

During the 2005 General Assembly session the charter passed the House, but was stalled in the Senate by state Sen. Bill Hamrick, R-Carrollton, due to imminent domain issues that were then being debated at the state level. Every year since, local legislators have refused to consider the proposal because the decision wasn’t unanimous with Councilman Larry Estvanko casting the lone dissenting vote each of those years. However, Estvanko was defeated by Terron Bivins in November and both she and new Councilman Jay Mann have spoken in favor of a charter change.