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09/19/2017 12:00 AMIn a surprise move, the Board of Selectmen (BOS) voted 3-2 on Sept. 13 to send the proposed changes to the town charter to referendum in November, after having earlier this month decided to postpone that vote. The move, which could place responsibility for daily government decision in the hands of a professional town manager, came a day after the Sept. 12 primary elections that removed four of the five current selectmen from the November ballot.
The charter changes proposed by the Charter Revision Committee earlier this year were turned down by the BOS in July, but were the subject of a successful petition drive to put the changes to a public vote. The proposed changes would, among other things, employ a professional, certified town manager to conduct the town’s daily business, with the BOS serving as the manager’s employer. Many of the current first selectman’s duties, such as handling town finances and managing town employees, would be transferred to the town manager.
Following the initial BOS rejection of the measure, a grassroots group successfully petitioned to put the measure to a vote. At its Sept. 6 meeting, the BOS decided hold the vote on the town charter sometime in the next 15 months rather than part of the November election, citing concerns that if adopted, the charter would force the town to enact the changes in 30 days, which many saw as too small a window.
At the Sept. 13 meeting, however, Selectman Willie Fritz made a motion to add the charter review to the agenda and a subsequent motion to put the proposed charter changes to a public vote on Nov. 7. Fritz said he’d heard from the public that a November vote was desired. Selectmen Fritz, Lynn Pinder, and John Giannotti voted “Yes” to the motion, while First Selectman Bruce Farmer and Selectman Carol Walter noted “No.” Walter, a Republican, is the only board member who will appear on the November ballot.
This same group of selectmen, at a Sept. 6 BOS meeting, expressed concern about putting the proposed changes to a public vote, say that the proposed change did not include a specific date for the change. At that time, the BOS members and members of the Charter Revision Commission attending the meeting, agreed the timeline was unsustainable.
John Allen, a member of the grassroots Clinton Charter Reform Coalition that successfully petitioned to get the charter changes to referendum, called the surprise change in plans on Sept. 13 by the BOS “interesting.”
“It puts the coalition in a bind,” Allen said. “We want this to happen, but not in this form.”
Allen said the coalition has contacted an attorney and sources at the state level to see if there’s a way that the charter can be modified so that any proposed changes wouldn’t go into effect until two years after the vote, as opposed to 30 days after, which is the default, in the absence of a specified date.
Allen said the coalition worked and collected signatures under the impression that any changes wouldn’t go into effect for two years. Allen said town attorney John Bennet, who was given the proposed charter to review, didn’t tell the writers that without a specified date the changes would go into effect 30 days after a vote if it passed. Allen said Bennet “did not serve the BOS and coalition well.”
Allen said that if the coalition’s attorney finds that there’s nothing that can be done to change the date the proposed charter would go into effect, the plan is to hold information sessions educating the people about what’s in the charter.
“There’s no sense in voting for something even the people who wrote it don’t want,” Allen said. “Just finding the town manager could take a long time.”
Allen said the backup plan would be to redo the charter at a future date and correct mistakes, such as putting in a clear date as to when the proposed charter would go into effect.
Pending any further change, the BOS will now need to write a job description for a town manager and make sure that all the steps are in place should the Nov. 7 vote for the charter changes pass.