Council Slates Meetings On Charter Issue

By Steve Bigham

Legislative Council members will finally begin discussions among themselves on a set of changes to town government now being proposed.

The council was hand delivered a draft report of those changes more than a month ago. On Monday, July 16 (at a location still not announced at presstime Thursday), it will begin discussion of the recommendations made by the Charter Revision Commission, which recently completed eight months of town charter analysis. A second meeting will be held on Wednesday, July 18, at the multi-purpose center on Riverside Road, with two more meetings to be held July 24 and 25. All meetings will begin at 7:30 pm.

The commission, headed by Chairman Bill Sheluck, is proposing significant revisions to the town charter, including the elimination of the Board of Selectman, a stronger first selectman, and the creation of a Board of Finance. The Charter Revision Commission’s theme from the beginning has been to restore the balance of power in government.

Council leaders have been outspoken in their opposition to many of the proposed changes. However, the rest of the council has been less vocal about its position on the charter changes. Under state statutes, the council has just two weeks to respond to the proposals.

This week, the council set up four meetings to take up charter revision, an issue that has generated interest among townspeople, many of whom showed up at a public hearing this week (see related story).

Next Wednesday’s meeting will be a joint meeting of both the council and the Charter Revision Commission. Mr Sheluck had requested the joint meeting, but was initially turned down by Council Chairman Pierre Rochman, who felt a joint meeting would be unproductive.

Council member Peggy Baiad disagreed, saying a dialogue is the only way to fully understand the charter panel’s point of view.

Mr Rochman shook his head, wondering how his board would ever get through this in just 15 days.

“And now I’m going to have a dialogue with 27 people,” he said.

“We’ll be here all night trying to get through this,” Mrs Pilchard added.

Mr Rochman said his decision to disallow a joint meeting was final, unless a council member made a motion to do otherwise. In response, Mrs Baiad made a motion to have one joint meeting and her fellow council members – clearly not in step with their chairman – voted in favor of the idea.

Mr Sheluck believes a meeting between the charter panel and the council is in everyone’s best interest.

“We have not had one minute of dialogue with the council yet,” he said. “We stand prepared to meet with the council as often as possible to get this done,” he said. “Maybe we can get a set of recommendations that we both agree on, but there’s no way to know unless we have a dialogue.”