Council To Air Its Many Views On The Charter

By Steve Bigham

The Legislative Council was slated to pay a visit to the Charter Revision Commission this week to discuss possible changes in town government.

Eleven of the council’s 12 members were expected to be on hand for the meeting and some were predicting it would end up being the perfect forum for the council to showcase its many differences. This past year the council has seemed at times to be a many-headed dragon with lots of disagreement among members. Often, these differences were rooted in varying interpretations of the town charter.

“Some council members feel the charter is working just fine. Some feel it is working very badly,” noted Council Chairman Pierre Rochman. “The powers of the first selectman vs the council always seems to be a source of friction.”

One of the biggest issues expected to come up are the so-called “ambiguities” in the charter that have created an “over-lapping” of authority between the council and selectmen. The charter, many say, can be read one of two ways. Read it one way and a key decision rests in the hands of the Board of Selectmen. Read it another way and the decisions rest solely with the council.

  These so-called ambiguities have become magnified over the past year as the selectmen and council have discussed the acquisition of Fairfield Hills. The council leadership has led an effort for some administrative input on the part of the council. However, their efforts have drawn much opposition from both First Selectman Herb Rosenthal and several other members of the council, who believe the council’s role should be solely financial and that its ability to initiate special appropriations now “usurps” the role of the executive branch.

Council member Will Rodgers believes charter members must avoid amending the charter language simply because of current conflicts among town officials.

“I don’t plan to speak a lot, but I plan to say that the commission really needs to divorce itself from present political squabbles and just look at the underlying language,” he said.

Some council members have observed the problems do not necessarily reflect flaws in the charter, but are more the result of a personality conflict between the current first selectman and the council leadership.

 “Look, don’t throw out the baby with the bath water. The solution is not always to run and change the language. Just because somebody questions the provision of the language does not mean it requires re-working,” Mr Rodgers said.

The council has not seen eye-to-eye on other issues concerning the charter and those were also expected to emerge this week.

“The interesting thing about this format is it might be more educational for the Charter Revision Commission because there will be counter arguments from different council members,” Mr Rochman said.

Last November, the Legislative Council created the Charter Revision Commission to begin study of the current town charter. Since then, the council has submitted a laundry list of suggested charter changes as they pertain to the council. They include the election of council members “at-large” rather than by district. In addition, some council members say they would like to see the Board of Selectmen and the town meeting form of government abolished, thereby creating a stronger first selectman and council.

Atop the council’s list of needed changes is the elimination of Newtown’s age-old “town meeting” form of government. In recent years, that process has been dominated by a small number of residents who show up with a specific agenda, according to Mr Rochman.

Many council members believe some budget dates need to be revised to make for a smoother budget process. For one thing, they say, the town is forced to look at the budget before the state completes its own budget. This forces the council to do a lot of guessing on the revenue side of its budget.

Some members believe the budget’s public hearing needs to be scheduled at the beginning of the budget process rather than at the end. By the time the hearings take place the budget has already been sent. Mr Rochman said the process can be re-opened, but it may be too late. Public participation is permitted throughout the budget process. However, those meetings are usually attended by special interest groups only, he said.

“The public hearings are supposed to be a bit more general, and I’d like to see them up front,” Mr Rodgers said.

Council member John Kortze believes there is always room for improvement, but has indicated that he feels the town works pretty well as it is right now. Some council members reacted with surprise about talk of revising the charter last spring. They wondered if it was a result of the recent outcome of the council’s budget deliberations.

This week, Mr Rochman suggested the town reconsider the way ordinances are formulated. “The productivity of the ordinance committee seem to be very much related to the committee chairman of the moment,” Mr Rochman said. “If you have a chairman that wants to get a lot done. The chair has tremendous amount of control and he can be very restrictive or productive.”

Mr Rodgers, the current ordinance committee chairman, said Mr Rochman’s comments are due “100 percent to a personality conflict.”

“We look forward to hearing from as many council members as possible,” noted Charter Revision Commission Chairman Bill Sheluck. “We expect to begin with some of the global issues such as the structure of the council, how it’s elected, and the council’s response to a section of the charge which suggests a change to a board of finance to deal with the town’s financial matters.”

Mr Sheluck this week noted that there are some people who feel the council, as it is presently constituted, is drawn in too many different directions. On the one hand, it wears a financial hat, while on the other, it deals with town ordinances, he said.

“It has been suggested that separating these functions and some others might make the town function more efficiently,” he added.

The charter, which was last revised in 1997, was first adopted in 1961.