More seats? As elections loom, Tega Cay may ask voters for two more.

Tega Cay won’t have any city races to decide on election night. But more votes could be cast in coming years.

The city is considering whether to change, likely by addition, the number of council seats representing its citizens.

The idea isn’t new. Former Mayor George Sheppard said, during his final months in office, that the city was large enough at least to consider wards or districts.

Mayor David O’Neal, elected last year, has his own thoughts on voting options.

“I’ve always had an issue with not being able to vote for a majority every time,” O’Neal said.

Tega Cay has four council members and a mayor, for five total elected officials. They all serve four-year terms.

O’Neal doesn’t have his seat up for election until November 2021. His seat will be joined that fall by those of council members Alicia Dasch and Heather Overman. Terms for council members Gus Matchunis and Ryan Richard come up for vote November 2019.

O’Neal would like to see voters get to turn over a council during each election by picking a majority of the seats.

But that would take something like a two-year mayor term with four-year council terms, which isn’t allowed by state law.

“Why can’t we vote for a majority every time?” O’Neal said. “If somebody is up here, they start taking the city in a way the city doesn’t want to go?”

The only obvious option for a majority-every-time vote would be to elect the full council each time.

Municipalities tend to shy from that approach. Many, like York County, have voted in recent years to stagger elected leaders’ terms to avoid losing too much experience from a council with each election.

In 2016, York County broke from its long tradition of electing a full county council every two years by awarding the top four district vote-getters four-year terms.

The remaining three winners got two-year terms, with all following elections going with four-year terms.

The move puts about half of the York County Council up for election every two years.

Some council members said longer terms would allow for more work to get done, rather than focusing on campaigns so often and so quickly following an election. Others argued two-year terms gave the public more frequent say in their representation. The decision was close. On election night, voters choosing the change accounted for less than 51 percent of the vote.

“The whole time for me, it was just about we had a group of people who thought it would help,” Councilman Chad Williams said that night, “and we put it on the ballot to let folks decide.”

Any changes in Tega Cay would require voter approval, too.

Residents could petition for changes in the number of elected seats, or the council could handle it through an ordinance. Either route would send the question to voters for final say. A vote would be held within 30 to 90 days or the certified petition or council ordinance.

“To change the number of council seats, you can only do that with voter approval,” said Jeff Shacker, field services manager with the Municipal Association of South Carolina. “Changes to the number of council seats is not that common.”

Shacker, presenting the Tega Cay council with information on potential changes at its recent meeting, said a vote would have to come as only a “yes” or “no” measure. It would have to be a single question. The petition or ordinance would decide that question, but likely it would be whether to grow from a five- to a seven-member council.

In South Carolina, there is one city each with 13 and 11 members on council. Another nine cities have nine council members, one more has six. There are 100 seven-member councils and 159 five-member ones.

As of the 2010 census, the state had 38 towns or cities at more than 10,000 residents. Of them, 26 had seven-member councils.

Tega Cay is one of two municipalities projected at more than 10,000 residents now that wasn’t at that level in 2010.

“In terms of South Carolina, a city with 10,000 people in it is a pretty large city,” Shacker said.

Of cities or towns between 10,000 and 13,000 people, seven of the 10 from the 2010 census have councils with five members.

“Ultimately, like so much of this, it really comes down to a council decision,” Shacker said. “And actually a voter decision.”

There are cases, he said, for and against larger councils.

More council members mean more costs, from pay to training and ongoing education. Those costs are “usually a fairly nominal expense” for a city at more than 10,000 residents, Shacker said.

More members can mean more direct representation for neighborhoods, particularly if wards or districts are used. There are several models.

In York County, only voters within each of the seven districts vote for that representative. In Fort Mill, the mayor and two at-large council seats can be residents from anywhere in town, while four more representatives must come from designated wards. Yet all town voters can pick among all candidates. The Fort Mill School Board, like Tega Cay now, has open candidacy and voting throughout its boundaries.

“There’s some combinations that can be used,” Shacker said.

Fort Mill, area school boards, municipalities from Rock Hill to Tega Cay and others use nonpartisan elections. Candidates don’t list political affiliations. York, Lancaster and Chester counties along with larger state and federal offices offer partisan votes.

Often, if a city is looking to add council seats, there is some factor to explain why.

“It really comes down to, how homogenous is your city?” Shacker said.

Socio-economic, demographic and geographic differences in various parts of a city may warrant changes. Overall community growth may. That factor most applies in Tega Cay, where residential growth is outpacing most any area not named Fort Mill or Indian Land.

U.S. Census Bureau data estimates Tega Cay topped 10,000 residents in 2017. That jump is a 36 percent increase since 2010 and a 4 percent bump in just a year. As of that estimate, Tega Cay was within 500 residents of Fort Mill’s population from the 2010 census.

Tega Cay, the fifth largest municipality in York, Lancaster and Chester counties in 2010, now is projected third behind only Rock Hill and Fort Mill.

Tega Cay also ranks among the more active communities in the area come election time. The city routinely has more candidates for each open elected office than neighboring communities big and small.

If Tega Cay opts for a special election, it wouldn’t become final until the following November general election. If the city increased to seven members, there would be options on when those terms start and how they might be staggered.

To compare, Fort Mill has seven members on its council. Rock Hill has seven. So do all six school boards in the tri-county area, all three county councils, Clover, Great Falls, Kershaw, Lancaster and York.

Municipalities with five members include Tega Cay, Fort Lawn, Hickory Grove, Lowrys, McConnells, Richburg, Sharon and Smyrna.

Chester has nine members. Heath Springs has four.