Council Approves Charter Revision Ballot Question

By John Voket

To think of it simply, Legislative Council Chairman Jeff Capeci said the Charter Revision proposal that was unanimously approved for this November’s ballot represents a snapshot of what next April’s local budget ballot could look like. But the council, after approving that multistage ballot question on September 5, opted to step back and use the next two weeks to craft explanatory language that voters will be able to review or possibly take right into the voting booth with them.

The council is also planning a multimedia campaign to be sure that any voter who needs information or is confused by the various questions within the single Charter Revision question understands exactly what they will be asked to vote for come November.

The council’s ultimate goal is to help guide voters to decide if the Newtown Charter should split binding operating budgets between the school district and the municipality; add nonbinding advisory questions to help inform deliberations in the event one or both sides of the split budget fails; and eliminate a rarely used provision that could move the local budget to a public town meeting after a second referendum failure.

“People are being asked to consider how these charter changes will look on the April budget ballot,” Mr Capeci told The Newtown Bee following Wednesday’s council meeting. “But we also have to be sure we are spelling out all the changes we are proposing for the [April budget] ballot with a format that is typically accepted by the secretary of the state.”

Town Attorney David Grogins attended this week’s council meeting, and reassured the panel that he has successfully presented numerous charter revisions to the SOTS office on behalf of Newtown and several other Connecticut communities he has represented in the past. With that, he encouraged the council to submit the ballot question as proposed.

“The secretary of the state likes to see a [particular] format. It would be a problem if we submitted this and it was rejected,” Mr Grogins said, adding that the deadline to submit the question for final state approval is Friday, September 7.

The deadline to have explanatory text ready for inclusion with November absentee ballots, however, is September 22, according to Town Clerk Debbie Aurelia. So the council chose to not deliberate or act on that supplemental language until its next regular meeting, scheduled for September 19.

During that time, Councilman Paul Lundquist plans to utilize the market research expertise he applies to his day job to script the most simple and concise explanation of what the charter revision means, and why voters are being asked to consider that change to Newtown’s constitutional document.

“Paul has significant experience in market research,” Mr Capeci said. “He wants to make the explanatory language clear and then put that information out for the press and voters.”

Mr Capeci said he will consider using social networking, the town’s website, YouTube videos, as well as asking for the explanatory information to be posted in every voting cubicle at each local polling site on November 6.

“We will be certain that the explanatory language explains the proposed charter changes without advocating one way or the other,” Mr Capeci said. “The council is very concerned about confusing voters, but the devil is in the details. Our goal is to put out a ballot question that people can read and understand, while also being approved by the secretary of the state.”

Mr Grogins told the council if the proposed question is rejected at the state level, it will be too late to put a retooled revision proposal on the Presidential ballot this November.

During discussion on the ballot question, First Selectman Pat Llodra suggested a slight modification be made striking some legal language from the segment that deals with the elimination of the town meeting provision. As it stands today, the charter authorizes the budget to go to a town meeting if it has failed twice at referendum.

But there are two ways to bypass a town meeting vote on the budget. A citizen or citizens can petition subsequent budget votes to referendum, or the Board of Selectmen can vote to move the call of a town budget meeting to referendum without a citizen petition process extending the timeline before any subsequent machine vote.

Part of the upcoming charter revision, if approved, would simplify and condense the process by moving any failed budget directly to a subsequent machine vote. Another part of the revision would place advisory questions on the budget ballot asking if each part of the split budget was deemed “too low.”

So while the proposed charter revision has several segments containing budget questions as they could appear next April on the budget ballot, this November voters will only be asked to approve a single charter change containing all the connected elements. A graphic containing the entire single charter revision proposal accompanies this report.