Mayor George Flaggs Jr. is going to give it one more try.

He’s going to make one more attempt to change the city’s charter; something he’s done three times before with zero success.

In fact, it’s been met with hostility by both aldermen, who have quickly squelched the mayor’s attempts at trying to put key city departments like the city attorney, city clerk, finance department and the police and fire department under his exclusive control, and have been reluctant to look at compromise proposals for changing the charter.

The mayor’s reason for his continued attempts to amend and change the chart is to create more government accountability to the people; make it more accessible.

As he put it, “You’ve got to have functional responsibility and structure, and when we do that, I think it serves the people better. You have a better government. You have a government for the people and by the people.”

But his continued attempts, especially where it involves placing major departments that should be responsible to the board, like the city attorney, under one person makes it hard to get support from the other members of the Board of Mayor and Aldermen, and they have already expressed their displeasure on several occasions about such a move.

And there is another side to Flaggs’ continued attempts to change the charter. It overshadows the work this board has done during its term in office.

The present board came into office with a more than $400,000 deficit and finished fiscal 2015 with a surplus. It approved an $18 million capital improvements bond issue, of which $9.2 million has been used to pave streets, add tennis courts at Halls Ferry Park and will soon fund paving of parking lots at Halls Ferry and Bazinsky Park. Plans are also being made to begin upgrades to the city’s water treatment plant in Haining Road.

Despite its squabbles over the city charter, this board has worked well together and brought much to the city during its tenure in office. It should not be overshadowed by the mayor’s obsession over the charter.

The mayor will present this charter plan to the board Jan. 3, “and hopefully we can vote it up or down and move forward.”

Hopefully it will work this time.