The turnout for Mayor George Flaggs Jr.’s public meeting on the city charter Thursday indicated there is apparently some interest among residents in the city’s government, whether that interest will translate into support of what the mayor wants to do remains to be seen.

It also remains to be seen whether Aldermen Michael Mayfield and Willis Thompson will agree to all the changes the mayor wants to make.

There’s no denying the city’s 142-year-old charter needs updating. There are many provisions that deal with issues such as keeping livestock in town, residency requirements to run for office and controlling how fast someone can ride a horse through town have either been resolved by the federal and state courts or are no longer relevant to the operations of the city.

But it is the change Flaggs wants to make concerning the appointment of department heads that is the controversial issue the city’s three elected officials will have to address, and the issues over which Mayfield and Thompson have the most reservations.

Under his proposal, the mayor will appoint the city attorney, city clerk, accounting director and the police and fire chiefs. The North Ward alderman would appoint the public works director and the community development director, and the South Ward alderman the parks and recreation director, human resources director and an information technology director.

During his presentation on changing the charter, Flaggs discussed his failure to get his nominees appointed to the key positions of fire and police chief, telling the group of more than 40 people he was humiliated by the way he was treated over the appointments.

“I don’t want that to happen any more. I want the mayor to have the right to appoint his people,” he said.

The problem with his plan, however, is future mayors stand to face the same problem with their appointments he faced in July 2013. That is, no appointment will be automatic. The mayor, any mayor, will still require at least one other vote to get his appointments approved. In other words, he could be spinning his wheels.

Harry Sharp, one of the residents who spoke at the meeting, congratulated Flaggs for “trying to reorganize a system that doesn’t work,” adding the city’s commission form of government still splits the legislative and administrative duties between three people, which is hardly an efficient means of running a government.

That’s the problem. Cleaning and upgrading the charter is necessary, but in the long run, it won’t change how city government functions. The only way to do that is change the form of government to a mayor-council form where the mayor is the chief executive officer responsible for running the daily activities of government and is accountable to the people.

Our present form of government works well as long as the three people at the top get along, but it leaves itself wide open to become a government dominated by personalities and longtime department heads who know how to manipulate the system to get what they want by politicking the right board members.

If Vicksburg residents want efficient and responsible government, changing the charter is not the answer. Changing the form of government is.