Wolfforth voters adopt charter to become home-rule municipality

Lubbock Avalanche-Journal
Adam D. Young, Lubbock Avalanche-Journal
November 8, 2023

The city of Wolfforth will soon become a home-rule municipality after residents voted to adopt a city charter, according to final but unofficial results from Tuesday's election.

Wolfforth's Proposition A to adopt a city charter received nearly 88% approval, with 689 votes cast for the proposal and 94 against, according to the Lubbock County elections office.

The city of Wolfforth shared a statement on social media after Tuesday's election results were clear, calling it "a historic day for the City of Wolfforth."

"The citizens of the City of Wolfforth have made history by approving the adoption of the City's Home Rule Charter," reads the statement.

Wolfforth is currently classified as a Texas class A general-law city, which do not have city charters and are generally municipalities with under 5,000 people. Texas home-rule cities generally have more flexibility in governance and policy compared to general-law cities, and cities can vote to become home-rule cities once their populations surpass 5,000. Wolfforth's population is estimated at just over 6,000, according to the latest U.S. Census data.

A charter commission was appointed in February and has worked since March to craft the "constitution of Wolfforth," which voters had the opportunity to approve on the Tuesday ballot, the Avalanche-Journal previously reported. The charter will determine how the City of Wolfforth is governed and grants additional powers to its citizens.

"A general law city is directly governed by the laws of the state of Texas. In other words, a general law city only has the powers specifically granted by the State," Randy Criswell, Wolfforth city manager, told the Avalanche-Journal ahead of the election. "A home rule city, on the other hand, has all power that it could could want to have, except anything prohibited by state law."

Specifically, the proposed charter includes three new ways for citizens to directly govern.

"There are three things that general law cities have no power to do, and those are the powers of recall, initiative and referendum," Criswell said.

Reporter Alex Driggars contributed to this story.