Backs Original Proposals—

Charter Panel Rebuffs Council

By John Voket

The Charter Revision Commission voted Tuesday evening to return six specific recommendations to the Legislative Council as originally submitted, despite the council’s call to revise or scrap those initiatives. The charter panel’s chairman Al Cramer said he was, nonetheless, happy that both the council and his commission were in complete agreement with 16 other charter changes that resulted in concurring recommendations.

“Personally I’m very pleased that 16 of our recommendations were acceptable to the council,” Mr Cramer told The Bee following the Tuesday meeting.

This week’s Charter Revision Commission meeting was the latest stop in a choreographed timeline that requires drafts, recommendations. and suggested revisions to pass back and forth between the council and its appointed charter commissioners.

The process of completing revisions to the town’s constitutional document also included a series of required public hearings as each group refined ideas and discussions on the charter’s finer points, many of which were included in the 16 measures both bodies agreed upon.

As the commissioners closed out their meeting this week, Mr Cramer was authorized to submit a final report back to the council, at which time the council is afforded 30 days to accept any or all of the commission’s revisions, or reject any combination of recommendations, or the entire body of revisions altogether.

Mr Cramer said a single charge or recommendation could replicate numerous times within the charter’s text. And in fact, several recommendations, if eventually accepted by the voters, would generate a domino effect of changes and implications throughout the document once it is revised, and those revisions take effect.

One of those points, and perhaps the highest profile recommendation, is to change the name of the Board of Finance to the Finance Advisory Board. Making that change would not only ripple through the document affecting numerous passages that currently refer to the Board of Finance, but that board’s members have staunchly argued it would fundamentally impact that elected body’s ability to carry out its intended function.

During a November 7 council meeting, finance board co-chair James Gaston reasserted his contention that as a Board of Finance, his panel has the statutory power to demand and receive financial information from any town office, board, or agency. He argued that if the charter commission successfully lobbied to removed the Board of Finance by name from the document to create a hybrid board that would be a one-of-a-kind entity among Connecticut towns and cities, it would likely nullify that board’s ability to compel other town organizations to open their books for full review.

Council chair William Rodgers was disappointed when he heard about the commission’s vote, saying it was an unprecedented move for a charter panel to summarily reject the opinion of the town attorney, and rare for such a group to reject the opinion of the town attorney and the council, which itself contains several attorneys, including Mr Rodgers.

“The Legislative Council felt strongly that the Board of Finance should remain the Board of Finance,” Mr Rodgers said. Finance board chair John Kortze said the role his panel plays in maintaining checks and balances is critical as the town has become a $100 million enterprise.

“I believe changing the name removes a lot of the functionality of the finance board, and the rejection of both the town attorney’s and the council’s recommendations so out of hand is odd,” Mr Kortze said.

Two other recommended reversals the council suggested to the commission involved shortening the timeline for budget deliberations by two weeks, setting the first budget referendum the second, instead of the fourth, Tuesday in April. That constriction of the budget timeline would be accomplished by consolidating two separate public hearings by the finance board and council into one joint hearing.

Mr Rodgers said he had an issue with a joint budget hearing, and requested the charter panel reconsider this item because each elected body has different purposes and functions.

“Citizens can gear their comments to each individual elected board based on their concerns, and in relation to the specific functions of those boards,” Mr Rodgers said. “I have a general objection to shortening the process.”

Mr Rodgers was, however, amenable to either moving the entire budget process either later or earlier in the year.

‘There are arguments to be made for either,” he said. “I understand if the budget is approved earlier, it helps the school district in its efforts to hire the best teachers. If it is moved later, the town may have a much better grasp on what it can expect as the state budget and its proposed appropriations to towns are finalized.”

Another point the charter commission refused to abandon was a proposal to reduce the number of local voting districts from three to two. Mr Rodgers said voters still deserve an opportunity to consider council representation based on unique concerns inherent in each of the current three districts.

He also alluded that reducing the districts might result in elections becoming more of a “popularity contest,” if voters were required to seat half the council in each election.

Another charter commission recommendation involved posting information about the town renegotiating existing bond sales and releasing annual town reports on its website. While the council agreed for the sake of transparency that this practice would be logical, its members were loathe to require the postings as a charter directive.

The final point the charter commission returned without revision was the suggestion to involve the Public Building and Site Commission on all matters within its jurisdiction, versus just the projects deemed appropriate by any current administration.

“This change would, in effect, confer to the public building commission a passthrough on all projects. The council wants to give the town the discretion on jurisdiction. The subject agency should not have total discretion over its own jurisdiction,” Mr Rodgers said.

Mr Cramer said as the council took its final pass at the charter revisions, there would be plenty of time to inform the public to ready them for voting on the changes at the first 2008 budget referendum. He added that ultimately, any revisions the public felt strongly about, which might be rejected in the council’s final pass, could be petitioned onto the spring ballot within 45 days of the final revisions being passed.

“My understanding is petitioners would have to secure qualified signatures representing ten percent of the registered voters in town,” Mr Cramer said.

Mr Rodgers reiterated his appreciation to all charter commissioners for their volunteer work, particularly Mr Cramer’s work in the chairman’s seat.