Town Vote On Charter Changes Set For March 29

By John Voket

Legislative Council Chairman Jeff Capeci hopes a high-profile banner stretched across Queen Street and a personal appeal to Newtown budget voters who want to send a message to the council in the event of a budget failure will help motivate at least 2,400 individuals to cast affirmative votes in a special referendum set for Tuesday, March 29, at Newtown Middle School.

The referendum will seek voter approval or rejection of the most recent proposed Newtown Charter revision. Polls will be open that day from 6 am to 8 pm.

To achieve the revision, Mr Capeci has previously said it will take 15 percent of the town’s registered voters — or about 2,400 individuals — voting Yes to trigger the permanent and mandated modification to local budget ballots to request that each voter: (a) approve the budget, or (b) reject the budget because it is too high, or (c) reject the budget because it is too low.

If the 15 percent margin of Yes votes is not achieved, the revision fails. If approved by more than 15 percent of local registered voters, the charter changes would be effective on April 5. But getting there, according to the council chair, is the challenge.

“If we can get the school parents out to vote, or voting absentee if they won’t be in town, there’s a chance,” Mr Capeci told The Bee this week. “But it’s a high hurdle. I’m thinking it’s a long shot to get 2,400 Yes votes.”

Mr Capeci said the school district would help the effort by sending reminders to parents home with students March 24 and then again the day before the vote, and several high traffic corners across town have been posted with referendum reminder signs, so if the charter vote goes down, “it won’t be for lack of trying,” he added.

“We’re hoping for nice weather, which would help the overall turnout,” Mr Capeci said. “But if it does fail, coming into the 2011-12 budget referendum in April, if the first round does fail and we don’t have the added budget questions, we have to believe taxpayers are voting No because the request is too high.”

Town Clerk Debbie Aurelia is holding special hours for absentee voting Saturday, March 26, from 9 am to noon, at her office in the Newtown Municipal Center, 3 Primrose Street. Any qualified registered voter may vote by absentee if unable to vote in person due to:

*Illness or physical disability

*Absence from town during voting hours

*Religious beliefs which forbid secular activity

*Active US military service

*Service as an election official at a polling place other than his/her own polling place

According to the explanatory text provided with the charter revision ballot, the present charter in Section 6-14 provides for a single town budget to be either accepted or rejected by the voters. Approval of the proposed charter amendment continues to present voters with a single town budget, but provides for those voters who reject it to indicate whether they are rejecting the budget because it was “too low” or “too high”.

All of the No voters are added together to determine if the town budget is to be accepted or rejected. The budget is accepted only if the number of Yes (item a) voters exceeds the sum of the No (items b and c) voters. If the budget is rejected, the voter indication of “too low” or “too high” is advisory only relative to the subsequent budget deliberation of the town budgetmaking authority.

The council chairman said he would like to see a good turnout of all eligible voters, because the pending charter change, if approved, “would give all taxpayers in town an added voice to the budget process.”

“Any budget vote would be more empowering to taxpayers, because they could direct the council to what their no vote means,” he said.

Councilman Kevin Fitzgerald, who cast a sole vote opposing the revision, has maintained that the measure would not go far enough in defining what is on the minds of voters, and he has consistently called to take the budget vote one step further by bifurcating, or splitting the request into two parts so taxpayers could vote on the town and school proposals separately. But the charter commission ultimately decided against recommending that option.

“I believe this falls very short of what the public has been asking for year after year,” Mr Fitzgerald said in a recent letter to The Bee.

Mr Fitzgerald pointed out that towns like Simsbury and New Milford for the past ten years have been successfully splitting the budget and providing advisory questions without any risk of tying the council’s hands if one budget passes and the other fails.

“Why, after months of work and research by the Charter Review Commission, did the commission and the council get to this point not believing or simply ignoring that such a referendum model was possible?” Mr Fitzgerald asked. “I’m not sure, but it was certainly a missed opportunity on a very important issue.”

Anyone with questions regarding absentee ballots or the scheduled charter referendum should contact the town clerk’s office at 203-270-4210.