#1 2010-05-10 09:46:26
CRC: A few “Issues”
1) Straw Poll vote to change form of government at first meeting.
2) No review of the current charter reflected in ANY CRC meeting minutes
3) Former CRC member Larry Gaines dropped out before the first meeting. The CRC then functioned short-handed for ten months (when David Begley was appointed)..there was a motion when the appointments to the CRC were made by the BoS to have the interviewee’s “waiting in the wings” in case anyone dropped out, but NONE were ever appointed. All appointed CRC members (with the exception of Linwood Gay) expressed during their interviews that they were (more than) open to the prospect of changing the current form of government (as evidenced by their responses to questions posed by former Selectman Cronan, who asked each interviewee if they “thought the current form of government was working”, as well as various questions and comments made by former Selectman Sauvageau (and their responses).
4) Chose to use the “special acts” provision to change the form of government rather than review the current charter and propose modifications to the current charter at Town Meeting, as is their “charge”. A Charter Review Committee is appointed ONCE every ten years (years ending in “9”).
An Elected Charter Commission, which is usually the way a governmental change is proposed requires:
- A petition signed by at least 15 percent of registered voters in town.
- A Commission whose members are elected at large like other town officers.
- Voters to consider the question of a charter revision and commission members during the same election.
- Once the commission members are elected, the commission has 10 months to put together a revised charter for submission to the voters. At least two months after that, the charter faces an up or down vote in an election, and, if approved, becomes effective in a date provided in the charter.
5) Attempted to deter a citizen from recording a CRC public meeting, as is the right of any citizen. ; )
KEEPTOWNMEETING
Offline
#2 2010-05-10 10:10:42
Please read the Standard Times article today on page one about the TM charter article. Now Alan Slavin is saying they have Plan B in the event TM voters throw out Plan A tonight. That Plan B is the actual review of the charter (that was supposed to happen in the first place). All along it has been clear that the committee DID NOT REVIEW the town charter, but made an end run for a new form of government, reducing our opportunity for choice.
When the recommendations by the CRC are voted down tonight, I hope a new committee of fair-minded citizens will be appointed to actually review the existing charter and make recommendations to a future TM. Some very good candidates for the Charter Review Committee were passed over in favor of candidates who would do what the former and some current BoS members wanted. I am sure there are other citizens out there who can do a responsible job. Let's open the process up again.
Enough of this! The current members need to be thanked and retired and let's begin again.
Offline
#3 2010-05-10 10:23:41
Steve Decosta wrote:
May 10, 2010 12:00 AM
WAREHAM — Town Meeting will reconvene tonight, and its first order of business will be to consider legislating itself out of business.
In two nights last week, the body cleared more than half its 56-article warrant, but perhaps the most controversial and divisive issue remains: a proposal by the Charter Review Committee to change the town's form of government.
The committee is proposing a new home rule charter that scraps Town Meeting and the five-member Board of Selectmen in favor of an elected mayor and an 11-member council.
Whatever the outcome tonight, it won't be decisive.
If the proposal is approved by Town Meeting, the new charter then must be approved by the state Legislature and again by the town in a binding referendum.
If the proposal is defeated, Charter Review Committee Chairman Alan Slavin has promised a more conventional review of the existing charter, which is required every 10 years. "We have a backup plan," he said. "If people don't like this, we can go back through our existing charter and discuss it with everybody and ask them what isn't working and what we could do differently. Then we could go ahead and do what we can do to fix it."
Reflecting the sharp division in the community, the Finance Committee could not put together a consensus recommendation on the proposal, deadlocking 3-3 with two abstentions.
"The Finance Committee was split on the vote for this article," it wrote. "Those in favor of moving to a different form of government noted that town meeting tended to represent a very small percentage of the population and when critical votes came up, proponents on either side of an issue tended to dominate the proceedings. Those who wished to continue with town meeting felt that perhaps we might be entering a 'new era' and that town meeting could work."
Selectmen did not offer a recommendation, but several members have made their positions clear and the same sort of split exists on that board, as well.
The issue was the subject of a nonbinding referendum in the town election on April 6.
A slight majority of voters, 1,903-1,854, said they believe the current form of government is not working in the best interest of the town, but many voters said they were confused by the wording of the question.
All told, 25 articles remain for consideration, including proposals to create a committee to study the long-term use of town-owned land at Swifts Beach.
Most of the town's financial issues were wrapped up last week with approval of a $59 million budget for fiscal 2011, but voters still face requests for $99,224 to pay for the leasing of nine police department vehicles and $100,000 to begin replenishing the town's stabilization fund.
The meeting is scheduled to reconvene at 7 tonight in the high school auditorium.
KEEP TOWN MEETING...VOTE NO ON ARTICLE 25
ST: Wareham Town Meeting to consider self-destruction
Offline
#4 2010-05-10 15:15:15
They are called the Charter Review Committee because they were supposed to review the charter. It's not the "We'll Review the Charter Later if Our Little Plan Fails" Committee. They were charged with the task of reviewing the charter and they didn't. They were given a job and they failed. A new Charter Review Committee should be appointed - one that will actually do its job.
Offline
#5 2010-05-10 15:25:09
Here's something I posted on Mick Jones' "Big Lies" op-ed over on Wareham Week:
"The issues in our form of government don't spring from the legislative body that is Town Meeting, but rather the bifurcated executive branch system we have now. That is where an unelected Town Administrator wields the most power and Selectmen are limited to deciding policy matters, and have no practical control over the actual management of Town affairs other than jettisoning the Town Administrator and starting from scratch with a new one. That is frankly an awkward, cumbersome, demonstrably expensive and downright undemocratic way of doing things.
It is also something that could be remedied without the wholesale change in our form of government being pushed by the Charter Review Committee, but rather by changing the Town Charter to allow for three elected and compensated full-time Selectmen, and elimination of the Town Manager position.
That is the sort of solution the Charter Review Committee should have explored. Instead they propose to nuke a flea."
Offline
#6 2010-05-17 10:18:37
here is a Standard Times article...
By cindy parola
Cindy Parola lives in Wareham.
May 17, 2010 12:00 AM
I read in that statement a continued lack of willingness to do what Section 7:1(b) of the charter asks the Charter Review Committee to undertake: a review. Once again, it sounds like "modifications" are a foregone conclusion with no input from the critical components that rely on the charter daily to do the business of the town.
In 1999 I served as a member of the last Charter Review Committee. We met weekly and immediately decided that prior to any ideas each of us serving on the committee had individually about potential modifications to the existing charter, we should first hear from those who serve under it: the Board of Selectmen, the town moderator, every town department and all the standing boards and committees.
We invited all of them in individually to speak freely with us about what they felt worked and what didn't — and the feedback was thoughtful, truthful and quite interesting.
Next, although our weekly meetings were open to the public, we held additional input meetings in East Wareham, Onset and West Wareham, asking the citizens of the town to review the charter themselves and comment on anything they had questions or concerns about.
Lastly, we interviewed members of the original Charter Review Commission and again gleaned some fascinating insight into the hows and whys of our home-rule charter's genesis.
Many times, our chair broke us up into subcommittees to take on specific research, conduct interviews with other towns and report back, making the meetings very productive.
Only after this exhaustive collection of data did we sit down as a full committee and methodically work through the suggestions and ideas and see what logically would be of benefit and strengthen the document and make our form of government work better for the people of Wareham. In other words, we reviewed.
That process yielded 13 or so recommended changes, at least 10 of which were adopted and continue today — the deputy moderator, the appointed rather than elected town collector, requiring department heads to be at Town Meeting — just a few examples.
The current Charter Review Committee has a little over five months prior to the expiration of their appointments to go back to the drawing board and solicit input from those around them both in service to the town and living here as they actually review the charter and gauge whether modifications are in order and can be substantiated as being an improvement to the flexible fabric that binds our local government — very little time indeed to methodically review as we did in 1999-2000.
Although I cannot speak for the dedicated members I served with during this time, I for one would welcome a chance to speak with any of the current members about our existing charter and some of the ideas we had then and that were suggested to our committee that we were not able to pursue at the time.
Offline
#7 2010-05-17 12:00:41
Okay, the above S-T article answered questions I have had about the CRC, but kept forgetting to ask about.
I wondered if there were "casual" minutes from prior review committees. You know, suggestions, thoughts, ideas that could be passed to the next REVIEW committee as to how they reached decisions. Such as, department head's concerns. I would think these notes would be of great value to the next committee, even if they were outdated. The above article states that at least one member of this committee was not contacted. A wealth of knowledge from just one person that served is better than starting from scratch. The reviewers of the charter in 1999, obviously were not afraid to interview original members of the CRC. Probably because they were doing what the charter commanded - REVIEW.
Not under the CRC, but something that I have always felt strongly about is speaking to the people that work under the department heads. These people working daily at their job must have some thoughts of streamlining or changes that could be made to make their dept. run more efficiently. This wouldn't be a witch hunt or personal. I can't stand the waste of paper that I have seen, for example. I LOVE post-it notes, but what happened to using scrap paper with tape or a paper clip? Kids have to bring their own supplies to school. Not asking these people to bring supplies from home, just tear up an envelope and use the blank piece for scrap. "so and so called when you were out.." ~ write it on a scrap of paper, you don't have to have it printed out for you to fill in the blanks. Sounding petty? Not really, try it - start out small and work your way up. $3-4 a month, saved using "trash" could pay an hour or two of overtime over the year (EXAMPLE) or a new coffee pot for your dept. Too much waste.
Offline
