Date: Fri 13-Dec-1996

Publication: Bee

Author: STEVEB

Quick Words:

charter-council-districts

Full Text:

Charter Panel Votes To Keep Council Districts

B Y S TEVE B IGHAM

The town charter will continue to require all members of the Legislative

Council be elected by district rather than on an at-large basis.

The Charter Revision Commission decided to maintain the status quo last

Thursday despite a handful of recommendations from local politicians who asked

that, at election time, council candidates be lumped into a pool and then

voted on by the entire community.

As Jack Rosenthal pointed out in February, council members rarely deal with

issues affecting individual districts.

"The four candidates from each district are elected only by voters from that

district. However, the issues most often affect the entire town," he said.

"More candidates would be encouraged to run if they were elected at large."

Earl Smith, chairman of the Democratic Town Committee, said his party has at

times had difficulty recruiting candidates from certain districts.

However, as Charter Revision Commission member Ruby Johnson pointed out,

that's not a good enough reason to change things. Her commission members

agreed, voting 8-1 to keep the districts.

As an after thought, commission member Greg Bunger suggested nine council

members be elected by district and the other three be chosen at-large. He said

such a move would give the town a chance to vote for a person who has stood by

one platform regarding the entire town.

"I liked the first part of your statement, having just nine," joked commission

chairman Mike Snyder.

No action was taken on Mr Bunger's suggestion.

Mr Bunger also made a motion that the required number of signatures for a call

for a referendum remain at the present five percent of the total electorate,

instead of increasing it to 10 percent, as has been proposed.

"It's tough enough as it is to get five percent," he said.

The motion was approved unanimously.

Commission member Stan Karpacz made a motion not to allow for amendment to the

charter without having to wait for the mandated revision process. His motion

was approved unanimously.

Mr Karpacz also asked the commission to reject mandating a charter review

every ten years instead of five. That was also approved unanimously.

The commission made few other decisions last week, as members decided to hold

back on any more votes until they have more information or more time to mull

things over in their minds.

As member Brandt Schneider pointed out, it would be difficult to make any

decisions on the terms of offices before even determining what form of

government Newtown will have down the road.

Other items to be discussed are: should the town clerk be appointed? Mae

Schmidle, a former town clerk and also a member of the commission, was not

present at last week's meeting and will be asked for her comments next week.

Should the town empower or give authority back to the Board of Selectmen or do

away with the Board of Selectmen and have a first selectman/town council form

of government?

Should the Saturday public hearing on the budget be eliminated? Should capital

projects be considered at budget time? Should all proposed expenditures

outside of the budget process go to automatic referendum if they exceed a

certain dollar amount?

Having difficulty getting the necessary eight members for a quorum, the

committee voted to change the required number of members for a meeting to six.

However, eight members of the board must still be present for a vote so the

reduced quorum will have little impact.

First Selectman Bob Cascella and former First Selectman Jack Rosenthal were

invited to attend this week's meeting and were expected to be asked to discuss

the following: should the term of first selectman, Board of Selectmen, Town

Council and others be four years instead of two?

The committee, which voted to begin meeting weekly starting in January, must

present its revision to the town by May. The update town charter must be in

the hands of the secretary of state by July.