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04/18/2018 08:13 AMThe new Charter Revision Commission (CRC) is working on a variety of proposals, with the goal of presenting those proposals to the Board of Selectmen (BOS) sometime in the middle of June. Among those proposals, the CRC intends to present one charter that would retain the current form of town government, while refining some rules. A second proposed charter would include a change to a town manager form of government.
Clinton’s effort to revise the charter, the document that outlines the structure of government, encountered numerous problems last year. This year, the new BOS, when it created the new CRC, provided guidelines intended to make this process less contentious than the last one.
“The BOS did give us a lengthy list of suggestions they’d like to see,” said CRC Chairman Dennis Donovan. The BOS recommended that no one person should hold two elected position concurrently; that the first selectman and the Board of Selectman be prohibited from negotiating agreements, executing contracts, or hiring employees during the remainder of their terms after a town election that elects a new first selectmen and Board of Selectman; and making the Board of Finance a seven-member board (the board currently has six full members and two alternates).
The CRC has already examined some proposed changes and will need to seek legal counsel on what’s involved some of the other changes, such as prohibiting the negotiations of agreements by a BOS in between being voted out of office and officially leaving office.
“We probably won’t give [the BOS] a draft until the middle of June,” Donovan said.
While the previous CRC had more than 18 months to do its work, the current CRC hopes to have the proposal completed in six months.
“We’ll work a hard as we can to cover as much as we can,” Donovan said.
Donovan said that his goal for the CRC is to deliver two proposed charters to the BOS in the summer.
One charter would retain the current form of town government, but would include some significant changes that Donovan said the CRC felt would “make the government more efficient,” such as prohibiting someone from serving on two elected positions concurrently, increasing the Board of Finance to seven members, and allowing departments heads to transfer up to $500 in their budgets with approval from finance director, but without going to the Board of Finance. Donovan also mentioned changing the term length for alternates on the Board of Finance to four-year terms, which would match what full members serve.
The second proposed charter the CRC plans to present to the BOS would include a change to a town manager form of government. Under a town manager form of government, a professional, accredited town manager answerable to the BOS would act as the town’s chief executive, taking on many of the duties handled by the current first selectman.
Donovan said the CRC intends to spend the next several meetings discussing changes that would be needed if the town does pursue a town manager form of government.
“We’re going to concentrate on fine tuning the town manager” proposal, Donovan said.
Any CRC-proposed changes will be presented to the BOS, which decides what if any changes the public may vote on. Donovan said that there will be at least two more public hearings on the proposed charter changes.
“I do want the public to be educated on this, this time around,” Donovan said.
A 2017 charter revision proposal called for, among other recommendations, a change to a town manager style of government. The previous BOS voted not to send the proposed charter change to the ballot, citing concerns about the lack of oversight of the new town manager.
In response, the Clinton Charter Reform Coalition was formed and over the summer undertook a successful petition drive that forced the town to have a referendum on the proposed changes. However, due to an oversight in which the proposed charter didn’t name a date by which it would go into effect, had the town voted for the creation of a town manager position, the town would need to make that switch within 30 days of the vote. That condition led to the coalition successfully encouraging voters to vote “No” on three charter-related changes in the November election.