After nearly a year and a half of work, the Legislative Council approved two ballot questions concerning the latest Charter Revision Commission’s proposed changes to Newtown’s constitutional document that will be considered by voters on Election Day, November 8.

The first question reads: “Shall the Charter be amended to provide the Sections 2-125, Sections (a) and (b) ‘Board of Finance’ be deleted from the Charter and all powers thereof to be vested with the Legislative Council.”

The second question approved during the August 17 council meeting is: “Shall the remaining Charter Amendments adopted by the Legislative Council on July 20, 2022 be approved?”

Council Chairman Jeff Capeci said that the council would not be approving the explanatory text during that meeting — it would be drafted at a later time working with Town Attorney David Grogins. The council only approved the questions, which have to go to the Secretary of State office before September 5 to be included on the Election Day ballot.

Also, all of the charter revisions are lumped into the second question, other than the removal of the Board of Finance, as the “majority of the changes relate to administrative items, with few substantive changes.”

Council members debated the wording of question one for a while. Some expressed concerns that the original question was not informative enough, while others were concerned that adding too much information would serve to confuse voters or give an incorrect impression.

In the end, the council voted to add “and all powers thereof to be vested with the Legislative Council” to the question.

Grogins noted that the Board of Finance as it currently exists “was a mistake,” in that it was added to a 2001 referendum by petition and the wording created the board in an unintended way, where it was an advisory body and not a fiscal authority.

“It’s a fiscal authority with no actual authority,” said Grogins.

Michelle Embree Ku suggested adding a question regarding Section 2-31, “Board of Education — vacancies,” that would read “Shall the Charter be amended to provide that 2-31 (c) (1-5) be added to create a new process for determining the successor when a BOE vacancy occurs?” That motion failed, 4-6, with Lisa Kessler, Matt Mihalcik, Charles Gardner, Jeff Capeci, Tom Long, and Phil Carroll voting against. The change to how Board of Education vacancies will be filled is still bundled as part of the second question.

Ku said the change to BOE vacancies was not part of the CRC’s initial charges and did not receive the same “level of attention” as other proposed charter revisions.

“My point is not so much objecting to it, but how it got there,” said Ku.

Councilman Ryan Knapp said that the BOE should be a bipartisan entity.

Capeci stated that there was “no need to itemize all the questions,” and that he didn’t see why the Board of Education change needed to be itemized.

Language on explanatory text for the referendum questions is expected to be discussed at a future meeting.

Associate Editor Jim Taylor can be reached at jim@thebee.com.