001a timely person. Uh just a reminder to everybody to turn on your green microphones at the tables if you want. Yep. Mark, just turn yours on. Just tap the side with the little red light. There you go. All right. I don't know if anybody's live streaming here uh to find out if we are live on YouTube. >> I can do that. If you can do that, that would be great. Um So, I am going to call the public hearing for the Charter Revision Commission to order here on March 12th, 2026 at 7:00 in the P. Francis Hicks Room. Uh the legal notice uh talks about the key items for review. The Board of Selectmen has charged the Commission with uh reviewing several significant structural changes including [clears throat] Board of Selectmen terms, adjusting the term
002of office from 2 years to 4 years, Town Clerk selection, transitioning the role from an elected position to a professional appointment by the Town Manager, service limitations, prohibiting members from serving concurrently as voting members on more than one major board or commission, budget streamlining, reviewing and proposing dates to the town's budget process timelines. While the Commission is focused on the charges listed above, the public is invited to comma comment on any item within the town charter. Whether you have a specific concern or general feedback, the Commission welcomes your perspective. And that is the legal notice. For those of you that have been on our town website, you will notice that the charter is one of the is embedded on the website, and if you don't know that, here it is. Here's the charter. And the
003great thing about the charter is it's searchable. So, if somebody were to bring bring something up [clears throat] tonight or if we needed a walk through on the charter, uh we could certainly do that. But, the town charter is a foundational document. Uh it has been adjusted over time here and there. And um and we are here to take a look at whether we want to do that again. The timeline of the Commission is this is our first public hearing. We've had one other meeting. Uh we will have a series of meetings on the first and third Mondays at 5:30 from now until the Board of Selectmen takes up the charge on June 15th. After June 15th, if the Board of Selectmen wants us to go back and research something, they will send the report
004back to us and ask us to look at something or redo a section, and then we would send it back to them. But, it has to be finished Our work has to be finished and voted on by the Board of Selectmen by about the first week in September in order for it to make the ballot for the November election. So, we do have a timeline. We do have everything in process right now in terms of research on the four charges. But, right now all of us would like to um hear from the public in a minute. So, right now I'm going to have the members of the Commission introduce themselves. [clears throat] Uh I am Candy Perez. Thank you, and we'll start down here with Bill. Uh Bill Hudak. Holly Cassidy. Paul Marino. Mark Lampognana.
005Louisa Martinez. Sandra Chisholm. Um if anyone online is thinking of something and wants to send in any comments, you can send it to ours uh Town Manager's secretary, Terry Hall, or you can send it in by snail mail or bring it in by written comment. Um but, that could go into Terry Hall, [email protected], and this Commission will then take a look at it. So, right now I'm going to open it up because this is a listening session for the Commission. So, if any member of the public that is here would like to uh speak on either of the four charges or something entirely different, uh please come on up and say your name, and we'll listen to what you have to say. So, Bill, you're going first, so you know the drill with the little
006microphone. >> drill. Nice. There you go. Okay. Maybe yours isn't working. Okay, I can speak loud enough. Maybe you can hear me that way. So, uh William Hester, 82 Boyd Street. Um I'm going to speak on some of the the charges you guys have had. As you guys know, I was on the Charter Commission last time, and that failed miserably. It never even got back to the Board of Selectmen, which is kind of sad. Um the Town Clerk position, um I shared before that since the history of the town, there's only been 15 town clerks in the history of this whole town. Um it's a non-political local position. I think that's important um that it's not, and uh recently I shared with a couple members after the last meeting that this past election cycle, there
007was town clerks that were voted out out of office that have been there 10, 15, and 20 years. It takes 2 years just to be certified in the Town Clerk's office. And I think it's sort of unfair that uh any person in that position is kind of uh having to campaign for his his job, his or her job, which is again kind of on the sad side. Uh the other thing is the Board of Selectmen terms. Um I actually had brought that up on the last time. Uh didn't fare very well. Um I think it would be a good thing only because, I mean, the Board of Education is doing it. Um the Board of Selectmen, um 2 years ago coming on, it took at least a year just to catch up to speed. Um
008that's my own experience. If we had And then the next thing you know, we're back campaigning again. So, I'd like to see kind of how it is with the Board of Education that is split. Um the other thing is the um the one person serving on two major boards. I think that's just a little bit too much authority and power for one person. Suppose they say yes on one commission, and it comes to the next commission, and they say no. I think that could be an issue. I don't know if that's a legal issue or not. That's above my my scope of knowledge as far as that goes. And the last is the the budget timeline. Um if it can create more people to come down and vote on the budget, I think it would
009be a good thing. Whatever that timeline is. I'm I know some of this is from the Town Manager to the Board of Selectmen and the way it's set up. But, if we can make it so there's more people that has availability, not necessarily on a holiday like it's been in the past, you know, like a certain day, this is when the budget gets voted on. So, that's just my personal opinion on on the charter. Um and try not to get too bogged down with too much stuff. Thank you. Do you mean Can I just ask you a question because public comment is not the same as public comment? On the town um budget, are you thinking of having a fixed date, sort of like that's always every year because we seem to vote on >>
010I'm I'm not really sure if that's something that's part of the Charter Commission. [clears throat] But, like I say, as long I feel as long as enough people can get more people to come in and vote because as we all know, there's always not a lot of people voting on the budget. And that's sort of sad because we [clears throat] are the community. After hearing the comments from some former Selectman Perez on this last Board of Education meeting, um we're community, and we need to pull together, and that's that's what I believe that we all should be and uh aiming for as a community. And Sandra, when I look at the points in the actual charge for the budget, it was require earlier submission of the budgets from the departments, set deadlines for the first
011town vote earlier in the fiscal calendar, and provide authority for automatic second referendum with shortened timeline if the budget fails. And I think that was really one of the main concerns was to shorten that window between uh a referendum and potentially a second referendum because we found ourselves getting into um uh supplemental tax bills and and a variety of problems like that. I'm going to check this mic before But, I'm also thinking, too, that if we have a set date, sort of like just >> Well, I was just going to stop you short for right now cuz we're here to listen to the public, and on Monday we can do all of the musings and the research that we have here. Unless somebody out there has a specific question. Otherwise, we we'll just get ahead
012of ourselves. Well, maybe. I didn't think you Well, if we pace ourselves, we should never have a late night meeting. Really? So, this is a pacing of the process. I hope. You may be a You may be a tech guy. Who knew? >> Good job, Paul. All right. Anyone else want to speak, ask a question, make a comment? Mary Ann Warner, 111 Berkshire. Um I wasn't really planning to speak cuz I was hoping this was going to be a lot of information so I would understand what this is all what was prompting it and what were the aim was of some of these points. But um so my topic is not one of the four. But uh it has to do with the um the voting for people on the Board of Selectmen when I
013was very surprised to find you could only place five votes for a seven-position opening. And didn't really understand that and I I knew I think uh the town manager provided me either the charter or something from the state that talked about how the minority party has to get certain number of spots, but that doesn't mean you can't vote for which people you want to be the seven people. So I I thought, well, if you're looking at the charter and maybe that's not maybe that's not in our hands in the charter or or maybe this, but I thought I would bring it up because it just seemed very strange. If you had 10 people listed, you know, five for each party or something or or an independent party with another five I'd want to be able
014to pick all seven of those names that I wanted and not say, well, you can only do five. It didn't make sense to me. >> Mhm. I get it, but it is state statute. >> Is state Too bad. All right, that's all I have. And I look forward to hearing more about what the charter >> [clears throat] >> do that. Well, we're waiting to see if anybody else wants to to speak. Uh on Monday at our our regular meeting on at 5:30 in the same room, we each of the four charges has a a couple people investigating the information for that particular charge. So on Monday our our goal is to take all the information that each subgroup has found on the four charges and bring it to the entire committee. Our committee meetings are
015open all the time to the public. Um and then we will look at all the research that was done and decide if we have enough research to decide it's that's good to move it forward or good or not good to not move it forward or we need to go get more information. So um so all of these things that we're look looking at right now involve a lot of research in the background. Does anybody else have a question or comment? >> [clears throat] >> I mean, if if we don't have any um then I could uh I will lead us into as to why as to why Paul just talked a little bit about the budget timeline as to why Bill is a Selectman too and he spoke. Uh so he's speaking as well from
016his view of and he helped make the charges [clears throat] that that came before us. So the um he he did say a lot about the reason for the town clerk. He did say a lot for about the a person serving concurrently. He talked and Paul talked a little bit and Sandra talked a little bit about the budget timeline. And then uh the last one was uh the four years versus two years. I mean, there's a a lot on both on all sides of these four issues. For instance, some of the ones that have come up in the past, and one of the things that we'll probably look at too is when we appoint people to boards and commissions, there's always an issue with are they an elector? Are they just a resident? Um and
017we have a that hasn't been a main charge, but it might be a charge that we have to look at because it it always [clears throat] seems to be a problem at some point in time because of the way the charter is written. Um the department heads may have something they want us to look at, something that helps them with their work. I heard from one earlier today that there might be a couple things they want us to look at. Um Danny, do you have any questions yet? Cuz I'm just talking. And we're really here to listen to you. >> [clears throat] >> Uh Jamie Colligan, East Wakefield Boulevard. It's regarding the concurrent commissions. Um I'm on a few. And one of my uh other commissioners is also on a couple and I find that
018they recuse themselves if they feel that there's going to be a conflict because they're going to be seeing the same um topic for one or the other commission and I didn't know if that would still continue. I mean I've seen that happen a couple of times um at the couple of the different commissions that I'm on. Um and the other thing is um don't really see too many other people volunteering, so I'm not sure why you wouldn't >> [clears throat] >> want the people that you have to stay for right now until more people would volunteer. Thank you. Thank you, Vicky. I mean, I'm thinking in public hearing, Candy, we can we can have some back and forth dialogue in these in these topics. Um Right, but I just want to make sure that people
019have a chance to speak because I'm pretty sure up here we can probably talk all night. Yeah, no, I I don't I didn't want to get in the way, but I thought I might answer a part of the question. It's not every board that's included in this list. It's some of the boards that do have potential conflicts, you know. Right. Um Planning and Zoning, ZBA, Inland Wetlands and BAA, I think were the list. There might be another. But they are the ones that really have potential for conflicts and um uh to have someone have the ability to make votes on the same application in any of those seems to be um unfair or to be making a tax decision and a wetlands decision or a tax decision and a board, you know, a zoning decision
020again seems to be a conflict. And even when people say they may recuse, it doesn't always happen and who's going to police that? That's the other problem. So Yeah, so so Paul just told you all that. But my reaction to that is that we don't know if it's going to be certain commissions and not other commissions because the board is this charter revision, that's why we exist [clears throat] is to look at what is happening, to look at the numbers or what commissions could have conflict and which ones don't or um as you mentioned the polls. So so that's why when the Charter Revision Commission gets a charge, there's that broader look at it all uh to identify based on more research than than just uh people's I I guess it's like we all have
021opinions, but what does the overall research say? What does the research lead to better community outcomes, better [clears throat] community uh you know, best practices, better community uh uh you know, adherence to what we're trying to achieve here, right? And uh it's you know, as Bill says, he talks about a broader amount of people getting involved. So so it's like any one of these it may come down to what we think, um but then again, it may take a a turn in a different direction based on information that we all find. So there's only one person then in the back that hasn't spoken. Is there anything I really just came here to learn. Listen to all of you and I'm sure there will be a point in time that you will open this up again.
022Yes. And you know I'm not against any of the provisions you're putting forward or the changes of state. Um unless something comes up that makes it a conflict with state. I guess that as time goes on we'll we'll get to that point. Surely there will be some bumps in the road. The charter process the committee that works and stuff and then to the Board of Selectmen, some of these may not make it to the ballot. >> Right. More than these may make it to the ballot or it may just be these on the ballot. There's a That's why the public hearings in the beginning, it's actually prescribed. You have to have a public hearing in the beginning, you have to have a public hearing in the end. Uh we have public comments at our regular
023meetings so that we can hear people and the people that are doing the subcommittee work right now are listening to people to bring all of that to us. So as there's not a lot of questions and it's still early, I'm going to go off of um off to we'll have each person that's on the committee just do a quick review of what they're doing and and to research it and that way to your point you want some more information so you could have it. So I'm going to start [clears throat] with Bill Hudak if he doesn't mind. Do you Welcome, Bill, by the way. Oh, thank you. He's been working on the the question of a professional town clerk that's appointed rather than elected. Yeah, in in 75 out of the 169 towns in the
024state uh they have an appointed town clerk rather than elected one. Interestingly enough, I looked also at those towns that had a uh manager form of government such as we do. And 20 out of the 26 of those towns have a uh appointed uh town clerk. I then spoke to a small subset of those towns to find out why they did it and find out what they think they got from it. >> [clears throat] >> And the why was fairly clear and I think actually you know, Bill spoke to this very well. It takes a long time to learn how to be a good town clerk. It's not the type of thing that you can knock off in a week or two of of training. Plus if you have an elected town clerk once they
025are no longer town clerk, there's nobody to train you. So, you you end up coming in cold. You do have the opportunity of uh getting help from the state. And the state is very helpful in that regard and the state actually does have a certification for town clerks. But that being said, most of the towns that have gone this way have viewed that as a very very important reason for doing it. Uh Bill had indicated the fact that we've had relatively few town clerks. And that's just because the town clerk position traditionally was not a hyper partisan one. However, in some towns, it is. And in some towns, we have seen town clerks only be in office for 2 years. And that has led to problems in those towns. So, for that reason, they've pushed
026for it. All of the town managers that I spoke to, all of the either first selectman or mayors that I spoke to indicated the fact that they saw no problem with an appointed town clerk, thought it created more professionalism. It also creates a a career path, if you will. So, that you get people who are not in it for a year or two, but people who are in there for their career. So, that's what I found out. It [clears throat] would be interesting, too, to, you know, as we go through this process because a lot of people probably don't know everything that each role does is to have background as to what is a town clerk, what do they do, what are their responsibilities cuz then that will kind of color what why it's important
027to have a town clerk. If if you want I can pull that information together. >> right on the board outside the town clerk's office today, so I took a picture to put in. Okay. >> the end of this, we'll be producing a report. So, I I I took this as a as a for a report cuz it was up there and this was put up by the current town clerk and uh all the things that they do. I mean, I think one of the major things is the land records, right? Your real estate. >> [clears throat] >> You know, if your land records aren't kept up to date the >> that keeps them busy a lot. Yeah. Not just for the things that keep them busy during the Are we computerized on all our land
028records? Are they all Yeah, everything's online. >> scanned in and you can go find anything. Yeah, our old system came on board here in the last year and a half, I would say. Well, you know I'm not sure. She always started doing some of that work when she was here when you could go on and you could find all your property records and digitized all the the the big huge books and stuff. But anyway, so that's the town clerk. Yes. The town manager. Just like the town manager hires the department heads, the department supervisors, the police chief um all those people. I mean, the town manager can use a committee. Right? Can use input, but in the end it's the town manager's uh he's the hiring authority here in the town. I would add that
029in some towns the while the town manager is the hiring authority the board of selectman or the town council or whatever it is, often times has to uh endorse that hiring decision. Yeah. They they do that with the fire department now. But I I mean, we we could talk about the pros and cons of why you would or would not want the board of selectman >> something I think we should do in our in our discussions. And you mentioned something at our last meeting about the history of the town clerk. You know, it may have had a reason in 1790 to be an elected position. It's not the same now. Do you did you have that history or was that I was just curious whether you actually knew why they were ever elected positions because
030it's not election that sets power a position that sets policy. It's really for all intent and purposes an employee type role within the town, really. It does It does specific services like any office does. I would I would hypothesize because I I haven't done the research, but I would hypothesize that at the time that this was created there were no per- permanent positions in town. Yeah, could be. So, it's one of the remaining few. Yeah, so I mean, it was the type of thing that you only had elected positions. So, I came across something, Bill, that might be helpful for you. It was the core certification modules that the Connecticut Town Clerks Association have to require Mhm. uh completion of. Municipal records management elections, which include administration and voter registration, absentee ballots, campaign finance filings
031and the certification of results land records, which we've talked about, vital records, registration, maintenance of birth, marriage, death records um miscellaneous records and other duties, handling trade names, military discharges, notary public appointments and administering oaths of office. Um most towns look for a mandatory 2 years on-the-job training passing a mandatory final written exam with at least 70 and a legal standing that must be bondable in the state of Connecticut and typically must be a uh a notary. They need to be aware of statutory knowledge for Connecticut general statutes, technical proficiency of how to use electronic records and all the software that we use and obviously financial accuracy. So, to your point that takes time. You want to have qualified people and if it's a career rather than, you know, the thought of one of the
032reasons we charged this was the thought of going through all the training and all the things that you do to get this job cuz it's what it is and have to feed your family, worry about your your benefits and all the things that you do to support your family be and then something completely out of your control takes you out of that position. If there's an incredibly partisan election for whatever reason that heck comes down from the national level and it affects everybody in town and suddenly you have a clerk who's unemployed who's gone through all these certifications, who understands the town, who knows where everything is is suddenly removed uh when nobody in the town wanted him removed, probably, you know. Yeah. So. So, in in 2022, this was a charge to the charter
033commission as well is to make the town uh clerk a professional position. It did not go to the table because the charter commission did not have enough uh support. And that's one of the things that will come at the end here is each of these charges is how much of support is here from us and how much support would be from the board of selectman because if you don't have a good and you know, good strength of support, then when you take it to the election, you probably have the same mixed reactions out there. Um you know, so you want to make sure that whatever we're doing here is a strong, you know, strong support from here to the board to the public. Uh so we'll see what everybody says. So, let's move on to
034um you guys did the uh boards and commissions, correct? Yes. Yeah, so uh It could be a quick report, doesn't have to be in depth to do it. >> Yeah, yeah. Uh Louise and myself are were charged with the drafting proposal kind of goes to uh some of the comments Jamie made. Um and it it uh no person shall serve concurrently as a voting member on more than one major board or commission defined as those with significant fiduciary, land use or regulatory authority. Uh examples given town council uh we have a board of selectman uh board of finance, planning [clears throat] and zoning commission and board of education. So, um and what we found we've we've done some research with uh surrounding towns is that uh they're they're their charters mirror ours in a lot
035of ways where the major boards you can only serve on one at a time. So, um and and uh the the smaller the smaller boards and commissions or the ones that are actually defined as um uh advisory or minor committees uh they don't have the restrictions. So, uh let's just say someone on the board of education also on the uh and uh an ad hoc uh task force or another uh smaller committee, um they're that would be okay. It would it would be suitable. So, um and the major boards that we define in our charter um is uh board of selectman or town council uh board of finance planning and zoning commission zoning board of Appeals, Board of Education, Inland Wetlands and Watercourses Agency. So, um yeah, so we're we're kind of in the in
036the early stages of looking it into some uh some other data from other towns and whatnot. And um and then uh you know, we'll keep working through that process and um and come up with something more concrete later on. Yeah, could I ask a question about the of what you found? In the wetlands in particular, um I've served on an Inland Wetlands Commission and actually several towns have it concurrent same board with Planning and Zoning. So, I when I served for example in Mansfield, I was on the Planning and Zoning Commission and we also served as the Inland Wetland Agency. You do not have it So, you didn't have a separate Inland Wetlands. >> That is correct. We did not. But, in that regard, our Inland Wetlands function was totally determining whether people followed state
037statute. And that's all that we did. So, there was no um ability to, you know, make policy or anything else regarding the use of wetlands. I don't know whether things have changed since then. So, I I'm not saying that that's the way it is. That's the way it was, I know, but not the way it is necessarily. But, I'd be interested to see how other towns deal with agencies whose role is to really uh determine facts and apply state law as opposed to uh setting policy. There is some um Inland Wetlands activity in our committee that is kind of setting policy in cases. And uh but it to to be in all fairness, we have a very unique situation in our town. We took a district, the Highland Lake District, number of years ago and
038we made all the properties with the exception of potentially 10 non-conforming by rezoning the requirements for acreage and side yard setbacks. And suddenly everybody's house was non-conforming. Which means if you wanted to put up a shed, you got to go before two boards. You got to go before ZBA and Inland Wetlands. And Inland Wetlands, you know, 90% of its task is at the lake and 90% of the ZBA task is at the lake. And those are two boards in particular that, you know, I find troubling. If you have a member who dislikes a particular project and has two votes on the same project, I think is is a definite um issue. And that's why we put that charge out there. And again, there's a many towns, Mansfield may be one of them that they that
039they heard, you know, 10 wetlands cases a year. You know, we hear 10 a month because any type of renovation and Candy will tell you whether you're fixing your seawall or you want to put in your lawn or you want to build something, everything goes before both boards. And but you're saying that that the Inland Wetland Agency has a fair amount of latitude in terms >> There seems to be. I've done some research recently on some of the decisions that they're making. And they have other ordinances that are written into it, right? We we we started debate and we're going to get back to it at some point. The dock and mooring ordinance is in their purview to some degree and there's a lot of interesting things that that have been ruled on that aren't
040necessarily in the regulations. So, um I I think now we're digressing. Right. And yeah, but but I I just think it was important for you to understand that we have a unique situation here because of the amount of volume that both boards see because we flat out made everybody's house non-conforming. Well, I don't know if we made them recently, but we'll stop we'll stop digressing. But, we're going to we're going to move on to Sandra and Holly and you had you Can I just make a comment regarding ours? Um the people here who have served on the boards, because there's a lot of things that we're going to have to consider, burnout for people who are trying to serve on more boards than they have time for. What would you say is the average age
041of the people that are on serving on these boards? For those of you who've done this. 60. 60? So, we're not seeing a lot of young people come through. I'm just we're just trying to consider all the different variables. Thank you for your input. You know, it's interesting. I think you make a good point. We should do a better job of promoting promoting it, right? I was just sitting here thinking like we promote this meeting, we promote a lot of our meetings that take place here and all the social media channels that we can do. And every Board of Selectmen meeting we go through the commissions and we go, "Oh, there's openings in this one, this one, this one." So, like tonight we have 12 people watching this meeting. I don't know how many watch
042the Board of Selectmen meetings, but we're not advertising it well. So, to your point, It's just one of the things that we're going to have to consider all these little side things that Yeah, we have in the past. I mean, if you go into the post office right now, a flyer I made for Inland Wetlands is still in that post office uh you know, asking for people to come out. Uh Jack Bork and Linda Grappo actually uh did a road show. They went up to the Grange in Winchester Center one year to talk about boards and commissions. Uh they went there I think at the library here one time and the goal was to try try to attract people and take it outside the political process. Uh you know, because we had somebody join one
043of our boards, Water and Sewer, who asked the question on which which party puts a person on Water and Sewer. And we're like, "Well, nobody. We just need the skills. You know, we need people with skills." So, we have had flyers in different places. Those two >> like the fall festival? We ever have a table out there? Yeah, we've we've done that. You know, so it's just a matter of, you know, things are out there and it's just a matter of people have a lot of things to do when they have families. I mean, if you if you look at a typical parent, well, Holly was when she's just a parent of cats now, I think, right? And a dog. Yeah. Yeah, so I love my child. But, but you're not bringing your She's lower
044than me. Yes. You know, parents they are going to the football game, then they're going to the watch somebody at the wrestling meet, then they want to go out to Applebee's and then they want to, you know, go over their friend's house and then, "Oh, by the way, I have to clean the house and I have to do this and that." So, it it becomes very hard. It's it's like the volunteer fireman. Why don't we have that either? Well, we can shoot for the 40s. We we don't have to go that far. We can shoot for the 40s, yeah. But, something like the Laurel Commission, you could recruit maybe past winners that are younger or >> Well, the Laurel Commission, from what I understand right now, is uh in desperate need of people if there's
045going to be a Laurel Commission. It's a it's a topic for another, you know, discussion, but I know that within the town, and I'm sure it's with everywhere, there is a significant lack of volunteerism. I know, even on something like the baseball board that I serve on, it's almost impossible to get people to serve um and volunteer. So, it's not just advertising. Right? It's or getting the word out. It it's creating a culture of people who want to step up to help. And I know that you said that that block of parent who is doing all types of things, maybe we can get the young people who are in their 20s and not, you know, they're just working and having fun. And then the older people whose children are and that's who we need to
046tap into to see So, I guess I have it. Mhm. Okay, so Holly and Sandra took two topics. And so, one of you take one and one take the other. Well, I have nothing to report because Paul's in the middle of budget season. Yeah, for the budget, we're going to meet with Paul next week to talk about the timing of the budget. And then we did some research on town comparisons for Board of Selectmen terms. It appears that most towns in the Northwest corner, all towns, have two-year terms. More towns down along the shore, um Westport, Greenwich, Wilton, New Canaan, Darien have these four-year terms. The only outlier was Canton has recently moved to four-year terms. Um and the number of of members of the Board of Selectmen range from three to seven. There's we're
047only one of two we found in our research so far that had seven members. Um But, um even the ones that have four years, I didn't see any that were noted that they uh one Greenwich was noted as having staggered terms, but a lot of them did the re-election for all of the seats for four years. So. More to come. So, that So, this the four-year term versus two-year term is something that you'll probably see a lot more research on uh because you you have to research not just who has what, but what are the you know, is it staggered? Is it all the same? Is it worth going to? Uh you know, how do people voters voters feel about it? How do How does the voting work if you run split? Uh does it
048give one majority always an upper hand versus the way it's it's done now? Uh so, I think there's a lot of a lot of research that goes along with it. Well, I think in the Mhm. knowing that our our form of government, I guess, is a representative town meeting rather than the open town meeting. Um, but what they said is that it change it strengthens the structure to have the four years because it just I know we keep using this term institutional knowledge, but it allows selectmen to have time to, you know, so they're not constantly running. But, I think also too, if we were to and this is something that we could discuss knowing that the Board of Ed is a four-year staggered, so you're not having a constant influx of new people who
049are learning on the job. So, having a staggered four-year term like the Board of Ed mimics the Board of Ed would probably be a good Well, the Board of Education over the past few years though there's been many people that have not served their full terms. There's usually in an election cycle you'll see a two-year term because somebody didn't make it through their four-year term. Uh, so >> Was that just in the last four-year grouping or has that been consistent in historic? I would say it's been it's not just this last one >> four years >> just this last one, but the there was one before and possibly the one before that. So, there's a lot of things to look at. I mean, it's you know, four years is a long period of time and
050you know, while four years makes it easy to get elected or not easy to get elected, but easy so you don't have to go to another election cycle. Bless you. And allows you in the first two years, uh, you know, to gather some more information so in your next two you you could have some more knowledge base there, but there's also the other side of things, too. Is that people are there four years. Right? And, uh, so that'll all be looked at. Is there anything else anybody wanted to ask or Just as a follow-up to what this gentleman was talking about, the list of of boards that might be a conflict. Did I hear waterways was one and wetlands was another? Cuz I don't know anything about these boards, but seems like they kind of
051go together. Like someone who's knowledgeable about waterways that would be good for wetlands, too, but I checked the town website. That's one commission. It's called Inland Wetlands and Watercourses Commission. I was thinking it was two of them as well, that's why I looked it up. You know, what you see me scrolling through up here is the town charter. It's online. And there is a section uh, because I I know this in the section in the back towards [clears throat] the back of the written ones, there's one that talks about the different, um, different departments. Let me see if I can find it without Here they are, right here. So, in here you can see there's the police department, health department, recreation director, senior citizen director. Um, these are all things that are in the charter.
052For instance, if we don't if we wanted to combine the senior citizen director with the recreation director, could we according to the charter? Not that we want to, I'm just I'm just saying that's something that's come up before. The Department of Social Services has come up before because we haven't funded somebody in Social Services except for maybe, uh, the past couple years, but here it is and so there was an argument that we should have that and other people don't. And then these are some boards that report to the Board of Selectmen, Board of Tax Review, which I think we commonly hear it as Board of Assessment Appeals, the EDC, we know, Park and Rec, Zoning Board, Water and Sewer, Winchester Housing, Planning and Zoning, and the Fire Department, Inland Wetlands. But, there's also the
053Historic Commission, there's also the Cultural Commission, um, that were also made but aren't here, but you would might consider those, uh, um, if you did major, minor, or in A B, they would be a minor or or a B. Um, so these are here. Um, [clears throat] like the Winchester Housing Authority is appointed, uh, by the Board of Selectmen, but the member from the Housing, uh, the Housing group is from gets chosen by state statute and by housing statute from the residents, not from anybody else, but the Board of Selectmen uh, uh, appoint. There's a section on the town manager about acting and filling vacancies. Uh, the uh, first selectman is, uh, how it someone gets elected uh, as and this is mayor because what happened is in the '60s it went from the mayor
054form of government to the town manager form of government, but they didn't like the charter hasn't been adjusted in that way cuz charter revisions are are are difficult, um, to to do, but there's these words are still in there from way back days. Uh, it tells you, you know, the powers of the selectmen, enactment of ordinances, Robert's Rules of Order, our annual salary, which is huge, and, uh, >> [laughter] >> You definitely don't do this for the money. It's talked about right here. Annual salary, it's right here. Look at that. Look at this big amount of money. $1,000 and $1,500. Woo. Just a minute, the Board of Ed though, they don't think it's any No, you don't get any of >> quite a bit. And that money was supposedly put in a long time ago
055to pay for expenses, you know, people's, you know, gas or things you had to buy to do the job and stuff and, uh, we've all tried to we've all tried to give it back at one point or another, but it's in here. So, once it's in here, then it becomes what we're supposed to do. So, if you take a look or anybody watching were to go on the town website and just look up charter and you also see the ordinances. There's also this, uh, we did this a bunch of years ago, uh, to, uh, Let me see if I can get back there. Uh, we put everything online, um, and it used to just it was always, uh, some of it was online, but it was all in PDF forms and things like that. And
056so, uh, this way it works through the code that you can search and stuff. Uh, planning uh, planning information is also online and the, these are the ordinances under here, uh, but they also have all the the zoning rules and regs online as well, but you can do that. >> Yeah, there's a search field, right? So, you can zoom in on whatever you're looking for. Right. That's convenient. Yep. So, like if we like if you wanted to see all the rules and regs at Highland Lake cuz there's some ordinances and whatnot. Come on. You going to look for me or do I have to There we are. Look, we have pedaling at Highland Lake. You know? Not paddling? Not paddling? Pedaling. >> [laughter] >> That's not bicycling, right? That's in the charter? Yes. Is this
057a charter search? >> ordinance. Yeah, it's a charter. >> What is a pedaling ordinance down here? It means that people that, uh, it's just mostly the Selling tin ware? No, it's mostly it's mostly for people that wanted to sell to people at the beaches and stuff. So, anywhere adjacent to public owned beaches, they have to have a proposal to the Recreation Board. You know, because all our properties are are valuable, right? You as taxpayers paid upkeep the beach and the parking lot and the fields and everything. If people just went in and started their own little business on that piece of property, Hot dog truck. Right? You know, parked Yeah, parked It used to be a hot dog stand there and stuff. So, so the search I did this for the searchability of it. You
058can search just anything. Like people this winter were talking about sidewalks and who maintains them and whose responsibility they are. Well, if you just put sidewalks in here, you figure it all out. It's all right there. Supervision of it, maintenance of it, etc., etc. So, anything in here is searchable. So, that's just a quick walk through it. Um, so I'll call for any last comments from the public. When you do charter revisions, they That's the reason for it, I'm assuming, or is there a point in time Is there a schedule of reviewing the charter on a regular basis during a period of time that you want to go over it, you know, thoroughly and see if you kept it updated or change something in it? Is that something that is a common thing? Well, there
059was a person that, um, had suggested to me that we put in the charter that there's supposed to be a charter review every every fifth year. Okay. >> do every third year. Um, you can review anything in the charter anytime you want. Of course. It's the process that's it has to go before the public and it has to be at a um, at an at a referendum time, you know, at voting time. It can stand by itself, but if you stand by yourself or you do it at another time other than November or regular November, there's a 15% threshold of voters. So, you could put out a whole list of changes that are supported by the Board and by the Board of Selectmen. And if you don't get enough voters there, it doesn't matter that
060it passed because you didn't have enough voters to make a change to your significant document of your town. So, the target I have learned over time is you always want to try to target November, um, because that's the best time to You don't have to have a quota of voters. Yeah, we have a gubernatorial election this year, which make for even a bigger turnout. The four charges that this commission got from the Board of Selectmen was unanimous and bipartisan from the board that was sent to the commission. So, there was a There's reasons behind each one of them and you know, you're welcome to ask what the reasons are. Um you can at any time. We're happy to share them. I think you heard some of them tonight, anyway. I try not to comment on
061all of them, but I can comment on the last one I didn't comment on if you like on the four-year terms, but I'm trying not to, Ken. That's okay, cuz I can comment on the two-year terms. Yeah. So, when you when you're doing the four-year versions and two-year with the Board of Selectmen, any thoughts staggering, how what does that actually mean? It means like one year you would elect four people and the next year you would elect three people. Like the Board of Education, one year it's five and the next time it's four. The next two years, right? Five and then four. Every other year. So, how is it determined which people on the board That is the number. I had that question. You would do it like So, we're So, let's say that comes
062before this November, right? So, unlike South Windsor and this board would have to keep this in mind as well as the Selectmen and the town manager. In South Windsor, they enacted a change that the public supported no more supermajorities. Somebody could have a majority, but no more supermajorities. Um and then it was supposed to take place when? And that's what they're going to court for. Because the town clerk thought it was supposed to take place immediately and the people that got elected thought it was supposed to take place at the next rotation. So, in this case if we were to make the recommendation and it went forward and the people voted on it this November, would we start in '27 with a four-year term and a three-year term on the ballot or a three-year and
063a four-year term on the ballot? So, are you also still keeping the balance of Yes. Minority minority majority. Yes. So, no board or commission, not just the Selectmen, but no board or commission, no zoning board, no Inland Wetlands Board, no ZBA Board can be more than 60% from one party. Not currently. That's in what South Windsor did. Or the town >> No, that's the state statute. It's no more than 60% of a board or commission. >> [clears throat] >> Yeah. Yeah. So, that So, no more than 60% can be. So, that's why the Board of Selectmen can be five and two. So, if you did a four and three you know, if you did the four cycle, you'd have to have one that was minority. And if you did a three cycle, you'd have to
064have one that was minority. And then when you marry them together, you could still end up with a supermajority. Um and so then you'd have to look at the effect on that in terms of do your Does majority always have a better chance once they have the three and the four? Um or the the three How's the three affected? So, I think all that has to go into the the research of it. And then just at you know, like in Torrington, they moved the mayor to four-year term, but kept the city council at two-year terms. But you're not changing the number of board members. That hasn't been brought up. If you want to bring it up, go ahead. You want to shrink us or don't make us any bigger. Can we Can we get the
065Supreme Court to Yeah. >> [laughter] >> Just stack it. No, I think we're I think we're fine with the way we've been working [clears throat] so far. Only Ken has a lifetime appointment. Yeah, thanks, you. >> [laughter] >> You might have to put a salary in there then, Bill. So, anyway, so we like I said, we will be meeting the first and third Mondays of the month. Uh we will be putting a Uh we have a calendar we'll be voting on on Monday, which basically says we've scheduled them out to September because technically September we should not be doing this work anymore. Um because of the timelines to get on the ballot. So, those will be there public Five 5:30, right? >> 5:30 on Um Yeah. 16th is the next one. Yep. This coming Monday
066there's one. We'll be talking more about our research. Uh the um The step after that will just be to keep working on those Mondays. If we need a special meeting, we'll call one. Um right now right now we see out in May as another public hearing. And by the time we get to when we get to May if we hadn't had a public hearing or comments before that, we'll have it then. But at that point in time, um I am hoping that we will as a board have decided which ones keep moving forward and which ones don't. Like do they all move forward? Do three move forward? Two, one, none, something else? Uh cuz that's what a charter commission does. Um but I don't think anybody here is We're not looking forward to going off
067into a lot of tangents cuz that doesn't work either. Because when you In my experience, when you look at which charter changes were successful and which ones were not successful, they are successful when the group works together, everybody has this common agreement to go forward, the public trusts that you've researched it, the public trusts that you all support it, and then the public will support it. If if if not, then it does not pass. And then because you don't want to I don't want I'll I guess I should just say you not you. I'll say I don't want to do all this work and not have have the charter not pass because it's a lot of work. >> Of course. And we watched [clears throat] a lot of them not go because it doesn't get
068through this board. So, that's why we want to try to have common agreement and keep talking about it as we go. Anybody else with any final comments from the public while we're up here? If not, the uh the agenda for Monday will be posted or should be posted online. Uh Terry Hall put that up for Monday. I may have a motion to adjourn the public hearing. So moved. Thank you. I second. Second. Thank you. All in favor? I. I. I. I. I. I. Can I get to vote in this one? It's public. We all get to vote. I waited to disconnect myself. Shut your microphones down. So, we are still live, so I have to go to the back of the room and turn off the system. And spitball in there, bro. You know what
069I'm actually