Alright, everybody, I'm gonna call the meeting to order.

My I got for myself.

It is 601 p.m.

sitting next to me, not the I make it.

Cool.

Can I begin?

Okay.

Uh it is 601 p.m.

I am Joe Britton.

I am the chairman of this ad hoc committee of the city council.

Um the subject of this committee is the charter revision commission establishment.

Um committee members are present, councilwoman, province and councilman Henry, members, ex officio that are present are councilman Dwayne Perkins.

I've got councilwoman Faye, Councilman Laughinghouse, Council President Busade, Councilman Flanagan, members of the public, as well as our honorable mayor, uh councilman Jordano, and uh that's member from the mayor's office as well for our Santos.

I think that's all the officials and the remaining constables frantic as well.

It's an elected.

Uh okay.

Uh we're gonna get going here.

So uh ground rules kind of the roadmap for the committee tonight.

Uh, what we're gonna do, we are going to go through the ad hoc request letter that came in from the mayor.

Um, and it's two parts.

We're gonna talk about whether we open charter revision, yes or no.

And the second part is the slate of recommended candidates for the commission, yes or no.

So it's two very pointed pieces that we're gonna go over tonight.

We have one resolution, um, that's go through each part, uh, keep everything pointed, questions very targeted at those two things, so we don't go outside the scope of the committee, but that's the roadmap.

We'll hear from exficio members, but um, if I start to see that you're venturing outside the scope of the ad hoc, I will rein you in.

So that's the idea.

Any questions or comments from the committee members on the roadmap for this evening?

Good to go.

Okay.

And for the record, councilman Rotello just arrived.

And councilman Le Pine.

So, okay.

So again, like I said, the purpose tonight, we're gonna go through the draft resolution.

So committee members should have the resolution in front of you.

This started um as a letter from the mayor asking for an ad hoc to initiate charter revision.

So we're gonna start off with that first question.

Um charter revision.

Obviously, I I will um I guess I will start uh the conversation on that.

Um, it's been over a decade, uh north of I think 15 years since uh we've had charter revision.

The city has changed, and I think it even could have possibly been decades before the revision before 2009 took place.

So I think um, notwithstanding any changes, at least looking at the document is long overdue as it was two years ago when it was proposed initially.

Um so I'm for it.

I think the document is a living and breathing document, and the reason why we have language in the charter saying that every 10 years we take a look.

I think that's there for a reason.

So I think the the question yes or no, should we initiate it?

Is a yes for me.

So open it up to the committee members on that part of the ad hoc.

Whoever wants to go first.

I just have a question because it does the last version of the charter, which was 09.

Is that correct?

Um specifically said that there would be a revisit on or before July 15, 2019.

Did that not happen at all?

So I yeah, so I would say the language, and maybe this is something the Charter Commission should look at, but I I think the language says the city council shall consider an act upon a resolution.

So I think it's vague enough where as long as they do act on a resolution, whether it is voted up or down, it satisfies that requirement.

But the council did take.

The council did vote on it, voted it down, but they did act on it.

But it was obviously not honored before 2019.

I mean, I I don't have as far as if it should be revisited.

I don't think that um I don't really have much to say about why it shouldn't.

I think that 17 years is a considerable amount of time to have a set of bylaws not be looked at in any for any sound governance in an organization.

Um whether or not the commission decides to make changes to it, that's a different question.

But I I you know there's a couple things that I think just are dated um from the perspective of reviewing for statutory compliance and um updating.

I I think as well past you to just look at it.

So thank you.

Uh through the chair to corporation council.

Um, our own charter is section eight ten.

Um, our own charter is section dash 810 gives us the look at the opening of the charter, but it also tells us that 7-88 general statutes govern the provisions in that section, and looking at that coinciding with the resolution, the step process of 7-188 general statutes.

Recommend this is a recommendation from this ad hoc whether you mean 718, etc.

Right, etc.

Yes, well, it's a it's a steps initiation process.

So we're recommending tonight whether or not we refer this to the city council to open.

That's step one.

Two-thirds majority vote on that at the city council on a single resolution.

Step one, one part only.

This resolution is covering two pro parts of a process.

It's asking us to say we're moving in with selecting it commission prior to opening city charter.

And it also states he be and hereby in its initiated.

We haven't initiated the charter yet.

So this part of the resolution is superseding what our city charter says in the 7-8-188 general statutes.

Can this be amended, removed from this resolution so we can only vote or refer the first part of this resolution to the city council?

Council.

Thank you for the question.

Thank you, council council.

Really quick.

Uh so just I want to get a clarifying question before we get a response from council on that from councilman Henry.

So are you saying that I just want to be clear on the question being asked?

So on the resolution itself, you're saying that we're appointing the commission prior to opening charter revision.

So if you read periodic charter review, I got that.

No, I'm talking about the resolution.

It refers to the general statutes, the governing provisions 7-188.

Tracking that 7-188 is a step process lined up with step one and two.

Two is the appointment.

We're not at two yet, we're at step one.

Okay.

So we can't put a commission in place in the same resolution before we even recommend or initiate charter revision.

So we don't have a two-thirds majority vote until we initiate.

We have to initiate first before we put a commission forward.

Isn't that what paragraph one says in the resolution?

No.

No, I'm talking about the resolution.

We're going by kind of general statutes of what we're following.

No, I know, but if we're going in sequence, I'm not trying to be snippy.

I'm just trying to give you my thoughts.

Section chapter one says the process of charter revision as provided for in chapter 99, which is what you cite, be and hereby is initiated, period.

So we're doing that.

We're recommending to initiate the ad hoc is, but the hockey council will be voting on this, which is really the only vote.

We'll have to initiate by two-thirds majority.

Correct.

But we're not voting, we're not initiating the commission in the same process because that's step two by general statutes.

The appointment of the commission follows that rule.

Sure, if you want to respond, yeah, right.

But it does say it is hereby initiated in the resolution.

It's premature.

There's nothing in 7190 is the section that talks about the steps, the creation of the commission, the appointment of the commission, and the setting of the timetable.

There's nothing in 7190 that says that those steps cannot be taken at the same meeting or at the same time.

If you look at 7190, it says within 30 days after the action has been initiated, the uh the appointing authority to council uh shall by resolution appointed commission.

There's nothing that says that it has to occur later than that.

By separate resolution, it should occur.

Well, your your the resolution before you is one resolution, which I believe calls for an upper down vote, and then it'll be up to the council as to whether it wants to divide those questions when it gets on the floor.

That'll be up to the council.

Is referred to us in our own charter.

7-188.

So we're we're that's the governing law of what we're going by here.

Right, and I'm saying the governing law doesn't preclude you for what you're doing.

But why would we want to rush charter revision in two steps to the process when it's clearly defined?

That's not a legal question.

Well, if we're going by condemnate general statutes, the definition of step one, two, and three is can is outlined here.

So what I'm saying to you is that there's nothing in the statute that says that it has to be done serial.

F be done in one resolution, especially given the time straight that you're you're under.

16 months is my understanding to conclude charter.

Up to sixteen up to sixteen months.

So I don't think that's a major factor as far as time constraint right now.

I think time time constraints that's outside the scope.

I think really it's just do you believe that it should be opened, or do you believe that it should not be opened?

It's kind of the question for us.

By reading this resolution and aligning with the general statutes, I don't believe this should be open this resolution.

So you're not you don't believe charter revision should be open.

Charter revision standing on its own for charter revision to initiate the process, yes.

But to appoint the commission at the same time, no even hearing uh from council that the law does not preclude you from doing so.

Historically, I've looked back at what how it's been done also, and Les Pinter had done it in steps.

And I don't mean to criticize what Les Pinter did, it's just that you know different corporation councils may have different opinions on it.

In my opinion, this allows you to do what you're doing tonight.

And the council to vote on it eventually follows on the specific chair.

Yeah, I think it it I think it precludes or it's premature to state that this is already hereby is initiated to appoint this commission.

It's not we haven't initiated charter revision yet.

Again, sir councilman, I sure I know I understand the arguments that you're making, but if you look at the text of the resolution, they're separated by paragraph, right?

So it's almost like this one resolution is covering that in sequence.

Even you go by just if you're doing just basic statutory interpretation, one, two follows one, three follows two, right?

So first in sequence, this resolution is calling the process of charter revision is initiated, period.

Two, now we're kind of in sequence.

The following nine persons are hereby appointed, period.

And then three, which is also per the statute, is we have to give our set the give the commission a deadline as to when they have to report the draft back.

So it's all being done in sequence.

What we're doing, and just I think this is for efficiency's sake, and I think personally it's good government that if this is passed as is, and now counsel uh correct me if I'm wrong, but if you were to split it up for argument's sake, let's assume that this got split up.

The and statute says the initiation of charter revision requires two-thirds vote stop.

That commission can then be appointed by a bare majority vote.

So if we were to pass this resolution as is for one, two, and three in here, we would have to pass it by a two-thirds vote.

No, I don't I think the committee just makes the recommendation.

I mean when it gets to the full floor.

When it gets to the full council, yes.

This would have to be a two-thirds vote.

So really we're providing more there's a higher, we're kind of setting the council, giving the council a higher bar to pass this, right?

If this resolution goes to the full floor, yes.

Okay, so if anything, we are putting a higher level of scrutiny on this resolution if instead we're to submit it.

If I'm reading everything correctly in this statute, I concur with your opinion.

So I think I always go back to the committee members on this one targeted question.

So I'm gonna open it up to ex officio members.

And this is the question as to whether charter revision should be open.

Yes or no.

And that's what I want the debate to be about.

So members ex officio.

Councilman Rotella.

Thank you.

Uh for the record Paul Row Tuttle, 1300 plays down race at the CL City Council.

That's just to respond to um Holly's question.

Under statute, we have to consider revising the charter every 10 years.

Doesn't mean we can't do it more often.

We're not supposed to wait longer than that, although there's never been as far as I know, penalty in the state of Connecticut for waiting to consider.

Well, let's just say that we want to dot our eyes and cross our T's and do this every 10 years.

There's nothing, there's a couple of reasons why this is true, and why we probably would not want to change this in the charter.

There's a couple of reasons why the statute does not before you get going, it's keep trying your best to keep the comments targeted to yes, we should open charter revision, or no, we should open the remote.

Specifically what I'm talking about.

Understood.

Opening charter revision.

It's one of the reasons why it's not the best thing to have a lawyer dealing with political questions.

This is really a political thing, and I appreciate your analysis.

I understand.

Just trying to run a tight shift.

Which we'll get to in a second.

There's a reason why we have a choice as to whether we're going to open the charter revision or whether or not the statute does not dictate our behavior on that point.

We can look at the charter and say, you know what?

It's been 10 years since we've revisited this, but it's in pretty good shape, and we're not going to change it.

As long as we consider it, we're complying.

Think about that for a second.

Let's just say that we decide to go forward on this with the two-thirds vote.

And it progresses for 16 months.

We we form the commission, we get everybody together and they come back with a report.

The council that we absolutely can't abide.

If it were the other way around, we would have to take that recommendation and send it to the voters.

We would have to approve that.

And that would go against the authority that the legislative body has.

So even if we decide to open this up and take a look at it, we still don't have to send this to the voters.

We don't have to vote it up ultimately.

We can decide in a year from now or a year and a half from now.

But you know what?

They they really gave it the good college try, but the document that we have right now is better than the revised document, and we're not going to take this any farther.

There's going to be several chances that we can back out of this if we want to.

Uh to a uh a procedure that would make us actually do that.

Then you get into a whole bunch of things like if we move a comma around, is that gonna satisfy the bar?

So it's probably good to leave it the way it is.

Tonight or at the next meeting in two weeks will be our chance to decide whether we want to do this or not.

And whichever way we want to go, that decision will satisfy compliance.

So that takes care of that.

Next thing is the 30-day period or um uh splitting the question.

If the I don't have a vote here, but if the uh commission, if this committee decides to go with these pre-ordained names, my advice would be to split the question in two weeks at the April meeting.

We would have the two-thirds vote if we want to go forward with the uh with the charter revision.

Obviously, if the answer is no, we don't have to go any farther than that.

But if the answer is yes, that then we should have a more fuller discussion about these names.

For instance, there's a couple of things in here that we have to do.

We have to make sure that no fewer than five um uh are our uh elected officials in Danbury, so we'd have to vet these lists.

I uh I'm um I I I kind of know who is and who isn't, but the fact of the matter is I think that the people of the city of Danbury should weigh in.

Another issue is in uh uh our March meeting, we put in front of the voters on the agenda the um uh proposal to revise the charter, and and nobody came and spoke.

We didn't have these names on here.

I I think if the names were on here at that meeting two weeks ago, they've been added now, they weren't in front of us back then.

People would have had more of a uh reason to actually discuss this.

It was a very sort of anodyne vanilla uh uh agenda item.

We're gonna take a look at the we're gonna send this to an ad hoc and see if we want to revise the charter or not.

This document here is much more concrete.

Not only are we being asked to revise the charter, but we're being asked to appoint names that essentially sits as the purview of the council.

Now I'm a council council member, I've been through multiple charter revisions before, and no one asked me about any of these names.

I I I had I have no skin in this game.

I should have skin in this game.

The city council is the exclusive body that gets to nominate these people.

And this is the first, not actually tonight, the second, but the when I got this document was the very first time that I saw these people.

So I for one, and I I don't want to speak for anybody else on the council, but I for one would like a little bit more time to to vet these people and maybe even discuss things with them and see where they want to go.

So I would certainly support if we're gonna go forward with this tonight if the uh uh committee is gonna move for a positive recommendation that the council in two weeks split the question and and maybe give the council a chance to come up with an alternative name or at least fully get on board with these.

And and and when it comes to the timing, look, we haven't done this since we actually haven't had a full a full review and change of the charter since about when was that?

Was that nine, two thousand nine?

2009 implemented started in 2008.

All right, so 15, 16 years.

So if it takes another month to come up with, I don't know how many months are in 15 or 16 years, like a hundred months or something.

If it takes another month to come up with a list of names, I I think you know that that's time well spent on the formulation of a new or at least revised document in Danbury, which happens to be the most important document that the city has.

It's basically our operating instruction, it's our own constitution.

I don't uh an argument that that we're gonna make this more efficient and do it faster does not actually uh uh hold water with me.

Matter of fact, it makes me a little bit nervous.

I would I would want to err on taking even more time to make sure that we get it right.

Because if it's gonna be another 15 years before we do this again, and it could be, we don't have to do it again.

Again, we don't have to do this, we just have to consider doing it.

It would be 20 years.

I would like whatever product comes out of this and goes to the voters, assuming that they voted up to be something as good as we possibly can make it uh with people on it who are as good as we can possibly find, not to imply that these are not we just have not, I have not had any time to put them.

Thank you, Mr.

Sherman.

Thank you, Councilman Members ex officio.

Councilman Schnees again.

Um like I said, I've been through many um charter revisions as well.

I think the last one we took under consideration was 2019, of course, we never passed, which means we have another 10 years to consider it.

So we're still ahead of the game.

We've still got time.

I mean, I did look at the charter, and I do agree that the charter does need changing.

I agree with that.

There's some issues that we had in the past, especially with redistricting.

We had a big problem with that, and that needs to change.

There's other areas in here that does need to be addressed sooner than later before we have to spend another 120,000 dollars on registrict.

So we definitely need to review that.

I know the Tom Clerk has to come about.

There's other things in here that we do need to change, and I agree with that.

It's all about the process.

Why do we need to change the charter now?

Not that we want to change it.

The wants come with the public.

We can't control the public.

But the council could control why we need to.

And if you look at the charter, there's why there are needs where we do need to change.

There are job descriptions that need to change.

Corporation council needs to change because we had issues with the corporation council as a definition of what's a so what I keep what's the um what's the term for assistant corporation?

System corporation council.

Whether that should be a full-time, part-time outside, you know, all that is not clearly defined in here, and Dika needs to be changed.

There's questions with zoning.

I think it should be, but there's some people who may not think it should be.

But that should be discussed.

But there's things in here I agree that need to be changed.

With elected officials, that's a that's a want, not a need.

And that'll come whenever.

But I do agree there's needs to be a change.

I do agree on that.

I also agree that it should be two resolutions.

We should agree to create the commission commission first and then appoint the members.

I think their question should be split with at least two resolutions.

Because that's what was done in the past.

It was done, we created and then we created the whether it's the same night or not, but it should be two different agenda items on the on the agenda.

I do agree with that.

Thank you, Mr.

Chairman.

Thank you, Councilman.

Uh, any other members ex officio?

Thank you, Mr.

Chairman.

Um, keep it really brief.

Uh, I believe one of our neighboring towns just did a charter revision, and they have it, I believe, mandatory every five years.

My way of thinking that's the way to do it.

Five years is you know, ten years or whatever we're talking about now, 17 years is to me, this is our governing thing, and it's 17 years old.

Come on.

So I would that would be mine.

I think we should vote, you know, this as one, and maybe make that a recommendation.

If I'm not speaking out of turn, make it every five years mandatory.

Thank you.

Councilman.

Any other member is ex officio?

Councilwoman Fay first.

Thank you.

Um I also would agree um with uh councilman Rotello and Councilman Shaneese and Councilman Henry, that there's a two-step process here.

And I don't think that the sequence that the paragraphs appear in the resolution is what's would meet the requirements as prescribed in statute.

Secondly, I want to um echo councilman Rotello's practical concerns about the names when they're presented and allowing the public and our constituents to weigh in on those persons that would have a serious impact on our city's governing document.

Thank you, Councilwoman.

Councilwoman McCreep.

Yeah, I'd just like to say that I think that it's important to open it up and have a conversation.

I don't see any reason at all.

What we can't have a discussion, obviously.

We'll have to talk a lot.

Everything that Ben said made sense to me.

There's a lot of things that need to be looked at and changed, and I think we need to bring it to the council.

Thank you, Councilman.

Councilman Afghanists.

Um just gonna align just uh what most of the folks are saying here in terms of just being able to open up the charter.

Uh I just happened to be sitting next to some of the folks that are actually on the list.

Um, you know, in terms of uh that are potentially gonna be on the committee.

Um, you know, when we look at potential names in terms of who would be on the committee, um, you know, being able to have act ethically responsible um and recluse themselves from the ability to do this in a fair and just way.

The only thing I will caution is are we going to push this down the road?

And I'm not saying I'm for or against it to just end up in the same spot.

That's the only thing.

I'm gonna just question and caution just for a little bit.

Um time is on our side, so I understand the question.

Um, and I know we're gonna have that conversation in just a little bit.

Um, you know, somebody who works with Fortune 500 companies on pretty much a daily basis.

I've consistently asked for benchmarking.

Um we have 140 million dollar budget.

I don't see why we shouldn't be opening this up for uh a benchmarking exercise, and that's what I see this as.

Um, and so my uh you know, I'm I'm for this.

Let's do it, and let's do it in a responsible way that's gonna be efficient for the taxpayers of the city of Danbury.

Um, and let's get government quicker to the people that we serve.

So thank you, councilman.

Any other members, ex officios?

It's McQuella.

Yes.

Thank you.

Chair, uh, I'll kind of ditto what a couple of people have said today about splitting the vote.

Um in favor of that.

Um there's a lot of new people that are on the council, me included, you know, and I think this is something that shouldn't be rushed.

Um, but I'd like to ask a question.

Um, where did the names come from?

Who put them together?

We are not there yet.

We are on whether we should open or not open.

I'll come back to that, but I'd be favoring opening it, but splitting the questions.

Thank you, councilman.

Any other members ex officio?

Councilman Jordan.

Um yeah, I think the uh the 17 year um gap since uh uh since the last one is is too long, and uh um I'm gonna speak strictly to question one that I support initiating uh the revision without condition.

Thank you, councilman members ex officio.

All right, see no more.

Uh I am gonna mayor since it is your letter, I'm gonna give you a chance if you want to um for the question of initiating.

Of course I support initiating.

Thank you, sir.

Okay.

Um all right, seeing no more members, ex officio on this question.

Um, we're gonna move on to part two of uh what I wanted to do tonight.

So we have obviously we heard the legal opinion from council that we um nothing precludes the city council or obviously this committee from uh considering the resolution in full.

So now let's talk about um the nine individuals that are um put forward on the um commission.

So I did get um for you guys just my team in here.

These are bios of some of the folks that have been uh presented.

So I'll just read for the record.

We have nine individuals in the resolution in front of us.

Isabel Almeida, Glenda Armstrong, Joe Britton, Wilson Hernandez, uh Dan Jowdied, uh David McCarry, Joe Putnam, Mary Jean Ribero, Michael Sefranic.

Um so those are the individuals.

I'll open it up to committee members if you have um any questions on those votes.

If I may through the chair, I mean I guess this is a question I'm not sure for just uh a matter of course, or if I'm pointing it to anyone in the audience, but I think I I do have a concern that this was given to us right now.

Um I think it that we when I when I saw this, I was a little surprised to get the names.

Um I think that is as far as from a statutory and and good practice perspective, um, there should be um at least certain information, including the party affiliation, um, because under statute there has to be a certain minority majority rule that's kept in mind.

Um I know I I think we can look at the names and figure out who it is, but I think that should be presented, should have been presented to the council.

Um I think if this is considered to be a resume qualification as to why they're selected, um, I think that should have been presented to us in advance as to that each one of these folks has the experience uh why they were selected, each one of these uh people understands the commitment and the obligation um of doing this, and that they agree to um in the ethical or uh conflict obligations to to serve on the commission.

Um I I just struggle a little bit with these names not being um more thoroughly um vetted, at least allowing us an opportunity to see them.

And I don't want to say that I know there is hey, you know, in the past, I don't want to rely a whole hundred percent on precedence.

I don't think that there has to be the statute doesn't require any sort of process, doesn't require that we solicit volunteers, but I think in the perspective of understanding why each of these folks are selected and if they understand their obligations, um I think that would have been helpful in advance.

Thank you, councilman.

I do want to clarify though that um when the packet was notice probably were going on two when are we at the council meeting near a month ago?

Um ad hoc was established, and then the meeting got noticed about two weeks ago.

The names were attached.

So they were they were in the packet.

Um originally was um there were placeholders, but then like a few days later they when the meeting was renotised or noticed the names were filled in.

And to clarify, I didn't mean the names weren't provided, I mean that the the specifics about why they were selected.

I understood.

Understood, but I did want to just clarify for the record that um council and the public for the for that matter had access to um the names for weeks.

So um and I as chairman of the ad hoc I didn't get any um emails or anything from um council members or for that matter committee members on any concerns with the names.

Just wanted to put that on on the record.

Um and I also think just to take to um you know kind of respond to your comments as well.

I don't think anything nothing wrote the the bios were just provided as a courtesy because we did it.

Um it was asked to um when we did it the first time to present some bios, and I believe at that time they were asked at the ad hoc to have them.

So this time figured we we got them at the ad hoc, which is the point of the ad hoc.

So if we want to go through each person's name, we can workshop it, give a go or note.

I don't think that's um an issue.

Um, but uh also wanted to make that clear.

So councilman Henry.

Thank you.

So looking at the outline process, I mean that addresses the issue of us tank taking time to look at the membership that's gonna be presented by a second resolution, giving us the 30 day period to go ahead and vet anybody that we need to vet through a normal process.

So if we stay within the guidelines that were on the onset that were laid out here, I think we not think that gives us a time we need to go through this process and answer all the questions.

Since we've been presented by O'S now, we do know a lot of people on the on the commission that are going to be appointed.

But like Holly said, it's a big commitment, and you're under time constraint.

And according to this timeline, this is expected to be on the November ballot.

That's all that's a quick that's a quick turnaround.

I don't think we can do it in that time.

So if we take these people and spend another month, talk to them and let them know exactly what's going to be they're looking at as far as a meeting every two weeks, a meeting every week, but potentially.

It's a big commitment.

So I think we should take the time to vet them, go through it.

Let them know the timeline exactly what we're looking at.

And I believe this should be a standalone referendum issue by itself.

Charter revision is a big big process.

It should be alone by itself, not buried in a ballot somewhere for people are going to check yes or no and not fully understand what it's about.

So thank you.

Thank you, Councilman.

Um, and just to respond to a couple of your comments just on the timeline.

Um Waterbury, we just did charter revision and 2024, got it done in under a year.

So it can be done any city bigger than ours.

Um so I wanted to respond um with that.

Um's ex officio on the membership.

I'm gonna repel it.

Okay, a couple of things.

The first thing is uh the timeline.

Uh we should stick to the 16 month and not do what this year would do.

No later than 16.

So that's no later than 16.

Let's talk about the night.

First of all, I've already discussed how I feel about this.

Question should be split.

I find it a little I'm a little uncomfortable with the chair of this commission voting for himself to be on the charter commission.

I think that's inappropriate that I would request that he recuse himself.

Not that I'm expecting that he's going to, but I find that the this is what this is one of the perceptual problems that we have when we're given a basket of names before the council is even come in.

Had this happened at a full council meeting, I would have said, well, gee, we're gonna we're gonna have people on the ad hoc voting for themselves to be on the charter commission.

We're gonna have the chair of the ad hoc vote.

I'm assuming that the chair of the ad hoc is, unless you're gonna split the question on all these names and councilman Britton is not gonna vote for himself.

It's it's it makes me a little trepidatious to have a clearly robust proponent of charter revision.

I've been listening to Councilman Britton, and he has been defending this.

He's he's the he has been essentially pushing back on any potential change to this process.

He's he's clearly a vocal proponent, and that's fine.

It's that's what he gets to do.

He's he's an attorney and he's a council member and he's in favor of this, then he should be in favor of it.

I'm not suggesting that he modify himself, but as the chair of this committee, uh he he has a greater responsibility, and and that is to sort of uh take all of the opinions of the people on the committee and the ex officio members and and sort of try to modify that so that we can move forward in a in a in a procedure that satisfies the people in this room.

I'm not quite hearing that.

I'm not hearing any sensitivity to differing opinions.

And then the the uh I don't want to make this about Councilman Britton.

Let's just make it about a chair voting to put himself or herself on the commission.

I there's something wrong with that.

And uh if I happen to be a a citizen of Danbury and not a public official, and I read about this in the newspaper, I would say, huh?

And I don't want my constituents to be saying, huh?

I want my constituents to be saying they did everything that they possibly could, and they did it as properly as they could.

I just have an issue with that.

So in addition to the fact that these names were not voted by the council, in spite of the fact that they may have been provided to us in the past.

We don't know why they were picked, if they lobbied, if if uh missives went out to the greater community asking for people to be on this.

Nobody asked me to be on it.

I'm on the council.

We've got a council member on it.

I mean, uh Councilman Vergins, where you asked.

Anybody else's room asked to be on this?

I'm gonna ask we have a room.

Can I ask the councilman direct questions through the chair, please?

It was rhetorical, more or less, because we know that they weren't asked.

The the point is we have a room full of city officials, and only a couple were asked to be on it, and the rest of them were.

I'd like to know why.

Why no one else has an opportunity beyond this?

So these kinds of questions are not the kinds of questions we should be asking tonight.

We should take a step back to decide whether we want to move forward with charter revision, and then if we do use that 30-day period to come up with the best possible names that satisfy all of the members who have a stake in this, that's what I'm saying.

And I'm not saying that that would mean that this list changes.

What I am saying is that I think that this body should have more of a chance to understand the process of how we got here and how we wound up with these names on this paper.

That's what I'm saying.

And and tonight's ad hoc is not uh is not granting us the opportunity to do that.

I I don't have an opportunity.

Is every is Wilson Hernandez here?

Again.

I don't have an opportunity.

Well, you said uh Mr.

Chairman, you you said that we can take the time to do this.

How am I gonna ask you?

Councilman, you're directing questions to the general public.

You're the chair.

Do you have an inquiry whether I'm not going to be able to do that?

Yeah, look at me then if you're gonna ask the question.

You were looking to the other.

Listen, I can look at whoever I want, okay?

I mean, let's let's not this is not junior on that.

If I want to look over here and look around the room, I will do that.

The problem with that, that's your problem.

I just can't tell if you're asking me the question.

Okay.

I'm asking you the question.

You stated that this would be a great opportunity to vet these names.

How am I gonna vet somebody who's not here?

How do I do that?

Uh, they were invited to attend.

I can't control folks.

Well, then, you know, is Deborah McCarry, is Deborah McCarry here?

Hello, Dr.

Again, Councilman.

Do you have questions?

Whether somebody is here through the chair.

Is Joseph Putnam here?

Is Glenda Armstrong here?

We can't bet them, can we, if they're out here?

I can get you a copy of their bias.

I will, as a matter of fact, would you like me to read the bio of the individual?

I'd like to talk to them.

I can find the case.

If on this committee tonight, I would like to talk to them.

I'm through, thank you.

Councilman.

Any other members, ex officio membership.

I saw Councilman Perkins first.

Thank you, Mr.

Chairman.

Uh just a quick comment.

I am all for bifurcation of the uh two items.

Um I I know that there is a an interpretation, or at least there is latitude for interpretation of how things should proceed, especially with the selection of the uh members, which is what we're talking about now.

Um but I I would have liked to see it follow the process of first selecting the committee and then allowing the council to select the members.

I mean, this does it, but in kind of a roundabout way.

Um we weren't really fully engaged in the selection of these individuals, and I think that council really should have had a greater role that and picketies, these individuals.

I I think that's I think that's important because we this sounds like almost like a redo of before.

This is the second bite of the apple, and it seems like we're kind of doing the same thing that we did before with the selection process.

I think we should have uh again more from the last experience to not really have to do that now.

Um that's sure.

Thank you, Councilman.

Members ex officio, councilman fight.

Um not to speak just to be heard, but I just want to know for the record that I do share the same concerns that have been vocalized previously that um councilwoman Robinson has vocalized.

Um councilman Rotello and and Councilman Perkins that um at the very least we do not know given the resolution what party affiliation the proposed members are.

So a little bit more time to come back into this room, I think would behoove all of us and certainly the council.

Councilwoman members expelled.

Mr.

Chair.

Is there anything in the charter that says what the process should be to choose the members?

It does in an indirect way.

It refer to state statute, which we talked about at the beginning, which lays out the procedure for how charter revisions are dictated.

Initiation, the membership, the number of electors, minimum maximum.

So the statute is pretty comprehensive.

But our charter doesn't have that layout in it.

It does by referencing the statute.

Well, there's no roundabout thing that happened, it happened as is allowed in the charter, right?

The choices of the people.

Yeah, I mean, I think we we got the opinion from corporation council at the beginning of the meeting that the way it's presented, the way the resolution is drafted as is allowed.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you, Tony.

Members exit issue.

Councilman Shees.

Okay.

My comment is before it still holds.

I still believe it should be two resolutions.

I don't think that has changed.

But as far as the number of the members go, when I read the original request, I read, but I did not read the notice because I felt there was no reason for me to read it because it's the same resolution that it was on the council.

I was already I when I was told that there was names on it, then I went back and read it.

And I only read it two days ago.

There was I didn't think there was a need for me to go back and reread it, because I thought a resolution using what's on the council agenda is what this ad hoc uses on that point.

As far as the names go, you know, I I do I know I we listen, I know most of them.

Some I think they're very good appointees.

Some I don't think you are.

So I would like to um have the opportunity to either vote yes for establishing the committee and no, if I don't I disagree with the resolution.

Otherwise, you if you put it together, you're gonna force someone to support against the whole thing.

And that's not the intent.

So I think splitting the questions, having two resolution, as councilwoman Holly Robinson said, I would agree with with doing it that way as well.

Thank you, Mr.

Chairman.

Thank you, Councilman.

Uh members ex officio I'll go, Councilman first.

Um there's an old saying, slow is fast and fast is slow.

I don't really see the need to rush this.

We need to take our time doing that.

Um if you could answer the question, who put the list together?

What qualifications, what was the determining qualifications to determine who got on this list then?

Yeah, absolutely.

So I'll defer if I could Mr.

Mayor through the chair uh to the councilman.

The list was given uh to the clerk and the ad hoc by the mayor's office.

The mayor, myself, uh my team uh worked on names that we felt were a representation of the city of Danbury, respected within the community.

Uh one particular person very involved in trying to get ad hoc um excuse me, trying to get charter revision committees open on their previous administrations and was going to be named and don't want to speak for him, but he's in this room.

Um we uh if I may, Mr.

Chair, can I answer uh a question that might have been brought up before uh that I wanted to apologize to councilwoman Robinson, um and I do agree I should have had this all with the party the parties on there.

Uh we did provide this to the legislative assistant with the party uh uh the parties to the names, so you should have had that.

Um we provided, I apologize you did not get that.

Um the the Democrats are Isabel Almeida, Glenda Armstrong, Joe Britton, Wilson Hernandez, and Deborah McCarry.

Um if um again, I don't want to speak out of turn, Mr.

Chair, so you just let me know how much please can have here.

Um the names, I think you'll answer some of those questions you guys can ask me.

I mean, you have the bios, but I just want to be honest here.

I know the whole body isn't here.

Um in terms of the speed, and hey, we should really slow this down.

The city slowed this down, that's why it hasn't been open in 17 years, and just because something was done one way in the past, I don't mean it's the right way or the only way to do things.

We've done many things differently, and that's how we've been able to move forward as a city.

Um, so I stand by uh the way we are doing this, the process.

Um we are just getting things done here.

Uh, there is enough time to get this on a November referendum.

My phone is always on.

People can call me when they get these have questions.

I had a great conversation with Councilman Henry yesterday.

We spoke for about 30 minutes on these things and amicable, right?

Just friendly, friendly disagreements, friendly agreements, but uh a lot of his concerns were addressed yesterday, but still valid concerns that uh we understood he wanted to present as he should as is right.

Uh, but I've also talked to many council members, and I know many folks are happy with the process here, and on these names, um, we can say we don't know the names, but we know the names here.

I mean, maybe there's a few council folks who may not know one or two, um, but we have a former chairman of my oppositional party here, right?

We have a former Republican councilman here who served with many folks here.

We have the long-serving city treasurer, right?

A very respected Republican business owner here.

We have another very successful business owner here, Mary Jean Rivero.

Folks who are used to looking at contracts who serve on other boards on the Democratic side, the president of the NAACP, teacher involved with labor, an attorney from the city of Waterbury who's worked on charter revisions, a Latino community leader business owner who has worked on boards and done many work like this in the past, the CEO of a major nonprofit, regional nonprofit, and you did get the names, and we also didn't get any calls, and we waited for today.

And I will be here as long as you want and answer questions on individual names as I presented these names.

And uh, for those who are concerned about their commitment, as I was presenting these names for you to vote on, because um it is our you know, purview as we read this that I get to present names for you to say yes or no to, that we get to vet these folks for you to say yes or no to.

You can ask me questions on why I chose these people, right?

You can ask me quite questions if I ask them if they can commit to this.

The answer is yes.

Every single one of them uh understood the commitment, the seriousness, and you all for the most part know the names, can talk to each other to realize this.

Um again, we stand by the mayor's office, stands by the process.

Uh we we know we can get this done.

Uh we appreciate those of you who already voice your opinions and support, and we know it's going to be uh an exciting time for the city of Danbury when uh on Tuesday uh this charter revision is opened.

Uh but I'd love to answer any questions, any concerns.

Um, and Mr.

Chair, I appreciate the the time to say some of that.

Thank you, Mr.

Mayor.

Um just follow up with that.

You had mentioned bios, right?

I I don't have them.

I know a lot of members in the council have my resolution to.

I will get them to you, but I did get them.

It's hard for me to answer questions or ask questions if I don't have at least a bio.

Mike you know, I'm sorry, I'm not sorry.

I spoke out of talking, apologize, and I will tell you just looking at this list.

I've lived in the city my whole life.

There's still four people on there that I don't know.

It doesn't mean they're not qualified, you know, but there's other people that I do know that I think are qualified.

And I bet you there's probably people in this room that may not know the people that I know and how qualified they are, and vice versa.

But to start with a blank piece of paper, which is what I have right now for the bios, that's it.

I don't have anything.

So I think a lot of the councilmen don't either, so I don't think it's too much to ask for to get them.

So I will forward you the bios as soon as we're done in the meeting because but I did get them uh today.

And there's a lot of people in Damray I don't know either.

City of 100,000 people, it's a lot of folks.

So any other questions.

I want to go before it get to you for the second time.

I do want to finish off for the first round of questions, uh, Mr.

President.

Sure.

Um I have a little experience with charter revision and I happen to serve.

And the most important quality of the Charter Revision member is a deep commitment to this city and a deep knowledge, but a willingness to learn about the city and a willingness to show up at the meetings.

And I can say I'm I'm very pleased at the wide breadth of experience in the list of names that that we were presented with.

Uh and I'm pleased with the wide breadth of various experiences for each one of these members.

And I'm sure that each one of these members are committed to attend each and every meeting that they're able to with an open mind and to learn as much as they can uh about the operations of the city of Danbury.

My experience on the charter revision was working with people who were committed, mattered much more.

Working with people who were honest and committed mattered much more.

In my experience of being on the Charter Revision Commission 17 or 18 years ago, we were open and we heard from everybody at every meeting.

Everybody had input.

We listened to everybody.

This isn't, I don't believe this will be a closed proceeding where people, you know, the nine people go together and meet, and there's no input.

There was an awful lot of input from everybody.

And it was a collaborative effort that the council was deeply involved with, and council members actively participated in speaking with.

So I happen to have the benefit of I guess knowing who these people are, in my experience in Danbury.

And I believe each and every one of them would be a great member of a charter revision commission, and would benefit their contribution to Danbury would greatly be appreciated.

So I support this.

Probably in this crowded room, we'll they'll have those meetings.

And we'll all gather and we'll cram into this room, and we will all have input in that before every meeting when we're allowed to speak, like we did 17 years ago.

So let's get on with it.

Let's move this forward.

And to each and every one of you who has their own idea of what the process should be, you can go to those meetings and you can put your comments in about each and every discussed change, and they will be listened to.

Um it is long past due to look seriously again at our Danbury Charter and how it applies to today's current set of statutes and the operations of today's government with all the different changes in federal and state rules that concern a municipality.

So I support this uh wholeheartedly.

Thank you.

Through the chair, and I just want to echo uh what Councilman Busade also shared.

Um after spending a bulk of my time kind of watching the previous ad hocs today and um some of a part of my evening last night.

Um, one of the points I kind of came out of that previous ad hoc is um the commission doesn't act alone, and I don't think that's been shared as of yet.

Um, you know, at each pointing at the intersection, it does come back towards the council where we're gonna be reviewing drafts.

Uh it does come back towards the council for prior approval.

Um, so I know there is some you know concerns with not knowing every single member.

Um I did a couple bios and checks, and and I'm not familiar with every single member.

I know enough of the folks.

Um, I know the mayor's office, and I know um you know he did his due diligence, but I know uh we are going to have the opportunity to review the draft prior to approval.

Um so I just want to point that out as well.

Councilman members ex officio.

Okay, I saw Councilman Dreudano first, and then we'll go.

Just so that I understand the process of uh the selection of um uh the members.

Um there the select the members are selected by the mayor's office, correct?

So if I if I could, councilman, so the appointing authority is the council per statute.

So the council could uh on at the April meeting could strike all nine of these names and but nine new people.

They could add, I think we can do a max of 15, they could add more people, they could remove some, not all.

That's the council's prerogative.

What the mayor did here is he recommended nine individuals to the council.

These are who he feels are the nine that should be on this commission.

So now it's up to the council, first starting at this committee and then going to the full council whether we want to go up or down.

So that's that's kind of how how that part operates.

So when the count when you say it's up to the council, is the council going to approve every in every person individually on this?

Or is it going to approve a slate of people?

It would be the way it's presented right now, it's one resolution.

So it's a it's a slate, it's opening, it's the slate, it's everything, the timeline.

So, like these are all statutorily required, initiating the commission membership and a deadline for which the commission has to report back to the council.

So that's all statutorily required.

This resolution hits everything.

Okay, so um so an individual council member would not really have any ability to uh reject an individual commission member.

So um so an individual council member would not really have any ability to uh reject an individual uh uh commission member.

So what they what they could do, as is the case for any modification to any resolution is it would have to be it's a democracy, right?

So it's the will of the council.

So if you wanted to make a modification, it's a majority vote to change that language, as is the case in any resolution.

So wait, so let me finish.

So what um what I'm gonna say is that um it's really what it is what we have here is uh a matter of trust.

I think we have to um we're gonna look at the uh people who are uh um nominated to serve here, and we're gonna have to ask ourselves do we trust the the person who nominated these people to pick uh good people to do this?

And for me, the answer to that is yes, I do.

And uh so I support uh the um I support uh um the process as proposed in the resolution, which is to uh do an immediate uh um selection of the uh um uh um to pass the initiation and to pass the uh um uh commission members.

Thank you, councilman I just have a committee member if I if I can clarify a process question.

So the resolution that's in front of the ad hoc is the um basically is the action of the city council to move forward with charter revision to initiate charter commission, apologies.

And then the second action in that resolution is to appoint commission members.

In response to Councilman Giordano's question, if if this was not if the resolution is adopted today, um or at least voted on today by this ad hoc as a whole, and it goes in front of the city council, and the city council wants to change names on that resolution at that city council meeting.

Would they have to could they amend the resolution as presented in that meeting and not have to go back and redraft the resolution?

Yes, the to the chair.

Um yes, it it's just like any resolution, you can add amendments to any resolution.

Also, under Roberts rules, the nomination process, someone could always make a motion to appoint someone from the floor.

And if that got a second, that would have to be ruled upon.

So it's not that by passing this recommend recommendment of the resolution to the council that you're necessarily hamstringing the council in looking at these names when it comes up on the floor.

That is fine.

Yes, I will have more process questions after all the aren't things.

So um we're still on the topic of the of the names, and I'm not council members for the first round.

So councilman Flanagan?

Just the thing that gets me is that this thing has been 17 years being kicked around, and here we are kicking it around again.

My fear is we're gonna kick it around, and then a year from now when we're running for election again, we're still kicking it around.

This thing needs to be fixed.

And so I'm not accusing anybody of stall tactics, but that's the way it feels to me.

So I think we should pass this as it is.

If you want to make amendments on the people in the list down the road or at the next meeting, fine.

We now know from corporation council we can do that.

But this thing needs to get going and needs to get going soon.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilman.

Um members ex officio.

So councilman Perkins for the second time.

So this is this is bringing up a whole other set of uh questions.

So it almost sounds like we're going to be presented with a slate in order to make a modification to that slate.

Either we make an amendment, which would probably at the time be considered substantive, or reject the whole slate and make a whole new presentation of candidates.

So I think it thank you, councilman.

I as far as the substantive versus non-substantive, I think because this is a resolution, you could make anybody can make a motion for modification on the floor.

Whether this comes out of committee favorably, non-favorably, it's still going on the April agenda.

This the decision of the ad hoc is really non-binding because we cannot act as on behalf of the council.

Nothing can usurp the council's authority as the appointed three on this matter.

But if at the April meeting somebody wanted to amend the resolution, they would have to go through, as is the case for any amendment.

You move to make an amendment and needs a second, there's discussion, and then it's an up-down vote majority as to whether you make that change, but whether it's substantive or not.

I mean, correct me if I'm wrong, counsel, I don't think for this, it would be usually the substantive versus procedural uh issue comes up when you're dealing with ordinances when you have a public hearing and then uh a change is made after the public hearing.

I I'm loath to to say unless it's a very minor almost typographical change.

I I'm being conservative of I always say you probably should send it back to another public hearing because it is an ordinance, but this is a resolution.

You're not bound by that because it's a resolution.

Thank you, Councilman.

Um you have a couple of process questions.

Please.

Okay.

The first one is, and I think we have to address it is can I ask through the chair to corporation council?

Um, is there anything that we should be concerned about from a conflict perspective to have the chair of this ad hoc have a vote to um move this resolution to the city council when his name is on the commission list?

No.

Um second question is I mean, I I I think I made clear that I was a little irritated about the fact that um I feel like there needs to be a very clear presentation of why each member, and I I know many of those names, and I think they're more than qualified.

Um, but I think that the fact that the council itself needs to make the decision, and they're the they're the deciding body as far as if those members are accepted.

Um I'm not necessarily sure we need to bifurcate the resolution, but maybe I would throw a uh maybe something down as a as a uh strategy is that ask the mayor's office to maybe provide a memo to the city council um with you know, in addition to the bios, making sure it's clear, um the parties of each person, um, why with it they were selected, and again that they have been notified of the ethical considerations and the commitments to be on that.

And I think um it should at least go some distance.

I would hope with the city council members if we had something clear before the meeting where we look at this resolution um that gave a instead of having to go back to another ad hoc to talk about each one of these members separately, if we would have maybe a supplemental supplemental memo that doesn't have to be part of the resolution itself.

Is that would that be on the record?

I think that would I I through the chair, I think that would be a perfectly appropriate question if the mayor deems it appropriate.

Yeah, but I don't think that does that mean I don't think that needs to go in the motion.

I think we can get a commitment.

We can get a commitment from the mayor's office that we can get that, and would that satisfy your I think that I think that I mean I'm assuming that there's you know what we've heard tonight, and I want to I mean I was trying to listen to what everybody had to say, um, is that there is some frustration and not having the opportunity to vet these names.

Um, and as far as you know what I've seen from other towns and cities that have done this, it hasn't necessarily been a vetting process where you're questioning and interviewing each person, but there are certain things that that I think the council should know, and that is why they were selected, if they're willing to make the commitment and they've um they understand the obligations of it, what their party is, so we can make sure that we're complying with with the statute.

Um, and I think that information uh would go a long way, hopefully, in in curbing some of the concerns about not having prior um vetting opportunity.

And um, we have some time to the next council meeting as well, and also the names, like I said, were notified well in advance of this meeting.

I didn't get any concerns from anybody, so you gotta do your gotta do the reading, folks.

So um and I just one one more follow-up statement.

Um I I do after looking at the statute itself, I do agree.

I mean, obviously it doesn't matter what I agree with, but I do agree with corporation council that it does not have to be a one meeting at a time approval.

Um that you know it is an action taken by the city council, and I think that um the resolution I think is is fairly clear on it.

So that's it.

Thank you, Councilman.

So tell it for the second time.

Comments from exhibit.

As for this, this is round two, and we're gonna understand two.

Sorry, um, just a couple of things.

The first thing is the the resolution with the names going forward from tonight, assuming that it's voted up, um, will wind up on the agenda.

And then at that point, if we split the question, and I'm not predicting that we will, but if we do, this is just a hypothetical, um, and we then change some of those people.

It's probably not fair to the constituents because they're they're coming into a meeting speaking at seven o'clock now instead of 7:30 about these particular names, only to find out that we're not selecting those names.

I think that the resolution tonight going forward, if you're going to leave the names on or something, should be baked into that resolution that states for the constituents that these are proposed names subject to change.

So when they come in at 7 o'clock, I've looked at the list of nine members.

I like six of them, but there's three, so my suggestion to you is that you use the six that I like and not the three that I don't like.

They will be able to understand that this is a work in progress and not um a something that's fixed because I I happen to disagree with council that it regardless of whether it's a substantive change or not, it doesn't make any difference because I think it makes a big difference to the constituents.

That's my first point.

My second point is I I don't want to.

This is not an ad hominem attack on uh President Bazade, but he made a pretty bold statement that he knows all of these people, and he is convinced that each and every one of them will take this with the utmost seriousness, and be at every meeting, and they're not at this meeting.

I mean, right the the statement itself is in is in conflict.

These people are not here at this meeting.

We're being assured that they're taking this absolutely seriously.

These people have been vetted, they will be here, they're gonna pitch, they're gonna bet a thousand if you're gonna be here.

They're not here.

I don't know if a third aren't here, half aren't here, or two thirds, but they're not here tonight.

And this is the people of Danbury are probably okay with taking a look at uh revising the charter, but the most important thing about a charter revision consists of the people doing the revising.

I have a problem with that.

Thank you, Mr.

Chairman.

I've been listening, and I apologize for being late because work travel made it hard for me to get here, which goes to the point I want to make.

Some people may not be here because tonight they had another obligation that two weeks ago when this was noticed, or a week ago when they were asked, they might not have been able to change their plans for tonight.

So I don't think we should discount that two or three are not here tonight, so that is a sign of their not wanting to be uh uh good and and full members of the commission.

One of the things that I've been looking at, I've been trying to look through the history.

2007, 2008, it's just basically minutes, there's not even ad hoc minutes unless they get into the council.

The process is different in 2027.

That doesn't mean it's wrong.

They've got the preamble of opening opening up the charter there, okay, and then they've gone ahead and given us the names.

Now, again, what I've seen in the past was the preamble came first.

You went to an ad hoc to open it up, you opened it up, and then the charter revision was kick uh commission was presented to you.

Well, to ask to open it up to do an ad hoc was earlier this month, midway through the month, they gave his names and added and extended what information was given to the ad hoc, and those of us that are not on the ad hoc got to see this, and you know, we saw the names a couple weeks ago.

The beautiful thing about this process is we will have to approve this come the April meeting, which is about two weeks away from now.

So between here and then, I am sure that we're going to get the information on each of these people, and we're gonna be able to do our homework, but obviously, the big part of our job comes that night on that agenda item when we discuss this and possibly move forward.

It's gonna take 14 votes, so it's gonna, you know, we need to convince a few more people than just 50 plus one to vote for this.

But in the end, charter revision is way overdue.

And just because it's being tried differently, nobody liked the way it was done a couple years ago, right?

Now it's being done differently, not exactly the way in the old style, but a little bit closer to it, and we still question it.

I think we just need to move forward.

We have time between now and the council meeting to read the bios of these people, learn who they are.

I don't know all the names on the list, and I'm going to do my due diligence, especially on the ones I don't know.

The ones I know, I I have no problem with that.

And so I'm going to do my homework on the ones I don't know.

So I think we just need to move forward and get this to the council meeting.

We need to get charter revision on the books, and then it comes back to us.

The city council has the final vote.

And you saw what happened how many years ago with that vote.

There were changes made even after that charter revision commission came back and said this is what we wanted to do.

Things were done, but still the night of the vote, changes were made to it.

Was it not?

Through the chair.

It was voted down.

So let's get through the process.

The way it's done doesn't mean it's the wrong way it was done.

It means, you know what?

We're doing things a little differently.

Let's move forward.

Let's get this on the agenda.

Let's get charter revision open and let's get these nine people working on reviewing the charter to see if there is any changes that need to be made.

Mr.

Leader.

It seems to be a grave disservice to our city of nearly 100,000 people.

I didn't comment that earlier to only select nine when the charter allows for up to 15.

And when that was written, our city was smaller.

So it really seems to be a disservice to our city to not have the maximum number of people involved in this process.

There surely are nine more than nine people that we trust in this city to be on this commission and be entrusted with this great duty.

And it is alarming to me that one of the nine people is the chairperson of this ad hoc.

And I'm not weighing in as a lawyer, but I I think there's clearly a conflict of interest in having a chairperson or a vote for yourself on a commission.

Thank you.

Uh councilwoman, if I could, just because it was brought up on several occasions.

Um I'm gonna ask some clarifying questions to council.

This resolution as presented.

Are they paying the members of the commission members?

Not to my knowledge.

Are council members paid to your knowledge?

Not to my knowledge.

Okay.

So there's no monetary interest in a member being appointed to this commission.

The way this resolution is presented.

Normally the way a conflict challenge works is you either has to have a personal or a financial interest.

You have no financial estimate.

Personal interest means an interest that is different from any member of the public who is interested in the process.

I do not see that you have any such personal interest that is somehow different than the interest of any member of the public than to do the right thing.

And I also think that we've had situations.

I think Councilman Perkins, didn't you voted for yourself?

I believe for the Caribbean commission or carrywell authority appointment.

I think there's opportunity.

You vote for yourself at the ballot box every year.

Okay, so I think um I don't want to delve too far into that rabbit hole, but um I can assure you, should an actual conflict of interest ever have occurred.

I would have recused myself any vote for that.

Um last round.

Sorry, yeah.

And just following up on councilwoman McFray's comment, it's an interesting point.

As this commission, as it's ad hoc, the chair considered increasing it on from nine to say eleven or fifteen.

Because like I said, are there other residents who would like to be on the on the committee on the charter revision, even members of the council who wish to give up their time to be on there or maybe other commissions wish to be on there?

So has this commission thought about increasing that?

And if so, are there other names that the council should consider to do that?

No one wants to go to the floor and come up with names if we could do it tonight.

If that's possible, because I think the chair, we can always add can we add um charter members throughout the year, or is it now one and done?

The the statutes really unclear on that then.

Um it says that the appointing authority shall appoint the commission.

Um what happens down the road if one commission gets commissioner gets sick?

I I don't want to speculate on what the answer is, but um it at least the way the statute reads is the appointment occurs now of the members.

So we could have not now, but when the council votes on who the uh commission will be.

So we could not increase it three more members two months from now, it would be deemed so to a resolution.

You mean not even not at the next council meeting, but three months down the road.

I don't want to give you a drive-by opinion on that.

You have it for the council meeting.

Sure.

Okay, thank you.

Councilman.

And again, it is the prerogative of the council as a whole to up or down these nine.

Whether we want to add more to the councilwoman's point to get it closer to 15.

We want to take less.

That's the council's prerogative.

This ad hoc, whether we're adding names tonight or not adding them, isn't gonna change the fact that really no nothing of substance can officially happen until it gets to the full council.

So I just wanted to make that.

I don't think you can add any names tonight.

You're you have the resolution before you may I'm gonna defer to the committee member first.

So don't do it.

I think you know, I think we're spending a lot of time in the committee members.

Um, and and I want to just be frank.

I think that when this was on the agenda, and I think the point was made by somebody in this room that there was not a single uh public comment um regarding the the charter revision.

Um I'm not necessarily I understand it's a larger city than it was, but I'm not necessarily sure the number of folks on the committee itself is really uh relevant because of the multiple opportunities for public comment and public hearing um and public input.

Um committee itself is a you know five four split for the most part from a party perspective.

I'm sure there's a lot of variables of opinions and other things among those members.

Um I think we can't forget that there's a lot of public input happening.

These folks are just supposed to go in with a clean slate and and and understand their duties of looking at this in an unbiased way together and work it out together.

I think adding more people is actually a little bit counterintuitive.

Um, but I just want to go back to having multiple conversations about the members on there.

Um I think that the conversation that I'm getting is that there's not a single person in the room that is saying they're against um a name that's on there, or have we brought another name that's not on there to play?

Um and I don't believe that anything I've seen that there has been an actual interview process where each one of these folks has been interviewed in front of a city council or any sort of governing body um in any city or town in Connecticut, let alone precedence here.

So you may think that the ongoing conversation about the names on the list.

I made my point clear that I thought um that it shouldn't have been on the resolution without having the appropriate information, particularly why they were selected, not necessarily just their bios.

Um, but just to make the point, I think that if these nine folks are committing to this and taking their job on the commission seriously, um, and and they're gonna be there for a lot of public comment.

If folks show up and and give their opinion on what needs to happen, um I think that's the process.

Um that um and there's more than one public comment period, is that correct?

Through the chair to council.

Um so I think that's important to remember that whether or not we like how it was presented.

I don't hear from anybody in this room that there's a name or two or three or five on that list that we won't hold off.

Um so I I'm if it's appropriate, I'm willing to make a motion at this point if you're done with um exficio comments.

Um I would move to recommend to the city council that we adopt the resolution as presented and as indicated in the resolution before the committee that the following occur.

Um, one the process of charter revision is initiated.

Um, two, the the nine persons that are indicated in the resolution are appointed to serve as members of the charter revision commission.

Um three, the charter revision commission shall consider any and all revisions to the charter that it deems necessary or desirable, and four that the charter revision commission shall submit um a draft report to the city council not later than 16 months uh from the date of appointment of the charter revision commission.

There is a motion on the floor.

Is there a second on that motion?

Can I ask for clarification?

Yes.

So procedural on procedural.

So on the motion, we are not splitting the resolution to separate the appointments and the initiation of charter revision.

Is that correct?

That is correct.

The motion that is on the floor is what was just made, which is the resolution that was presented to the committee.

As is.

Procedurally, so this will be in front of the recommendation.

We'll go to the city council to initiate charter revision.

Once charter revision is open by two thirds majority vote, then we're voting on the commission members immediately afterwards.

No, that we would be voting this resolution.

It would be one resolution.

So it would be as presented.

So it's the way the text is in front of you now.

That's what the motion is made to recommend to the full city council.

So when it gets to the full city council, it'll be the resolution that's in that was in front of this committee.

So there is no vetting process on these individuals.

There's no question.

There's no public input.

I mean, we get the council packet a week before the meeting when appointments are made.

So we're getting it actually earlier than the chair.

Once the motion is second, it's open for debate.

That too.

So in hindsight, not having all the members here tonight, knowing the importance of what charter revision is.

So for for purpose, so right now I just want to procedures important to me.

So you you made essentially a point of order as to just a clarification of the motion in front of us.

Are you gonna second the motion?

No.

I will second the motion.

So now we're on discussion.

So now you can continue.

There, Chair.

So in hindsight, we're gonna get the importance of charter revision and not whether or not they had a conflict or not.

They should have had enough time given to them to make sure they were here in this process of the ad hoc where it's open discussion.

Each one of them could have been addressed.

So that's a that's a failure point.

Um clarification on going back to trying to open charter revision has been attempted two times.

24, it was a committee, it was sunset.

22, it got out of ad hoc, was put in front of the city council.

I want to clarify that that we had made the attempts to do it.

It was voted down in city council and by individuals in this room.

So it was it was put in front of the city council.

It was put in front of the city council under the charter by the by the state statutes with a singular motion to open charter, and then it went to the fact of commission would be appointed on a separate resolution.

I'm not in favor of doing it this way.

Mr.

Chair.

Thank you, Councilman.

Any other discussion on the motion?

Um the only discussion I have is I think we've heard a lot of good things.

I I wish every ad hoc ad hoc was like this, where we had so much debate and discussion from all the members, everybody was very engaged as a student of government.

I appreciate that.

Um I think the arguments that were made tonight as to why we should open it, um, and these names were very well put.

The mayor chimed in and gave an opportunity that his door is open if anybody has questions on the names that he has recommended to the city council.

Um I think that if you do have concerns with the name, you should take the mayor up on his offer.

Um, I know he is always willing to hear any concern.

I think he's um very good at it listening to um attorney voice.

Um that being said, uh the most important question that I had that council very laid it out very straightforward is whether we are allowed to do this and whether the law says we cannot do this.

Council said that and go this route, which is the only concern that I really had as a matter of process because I never was bringing the law.

He said we could.

So um that's where I'm at on this, and the council as a whole is gonna get another bite at the apple in April.

So I think the debate speaks for itself and the names and then resume speak for themselves.

So hearing no more debate unless there's more.

So now we're setting we're setting a new precedent precedent on how we work with charter revision on the fact of not following statute.

I'm not seeing your binding any future charter revision commission.

So you're doing what you do, what you think is in the best public interest with this particular charter revision commission.

I think that's I think for my comment, it would be it's outside of the purview of council to change what this general statutes are saying as far as governance of selecting charter revision.

But in my opinion, it's not outside of the purview.

And if I could chime in, I mean the attorneys in the room understand you ask four lawyers an opinion on something, you're gonna get four different answers, right?

Which is the beauty, but Mr.

Mayor, I know you I want to no uh I just wanted to be able to say thank you to everybody here.

This is healthy debate.

Um I think we've heard a million reasons tonight why the charter revision should be open.

You can require 15 people to be on it and not give the option of nine to fifteen.

You can require so much more.

You can clarify things in language as long as they're going to statute, and this is the opportunity to do so.

We stand by the names, we stand by the process, um, and we stand by that this is done according to law and according to state statute.

It's been said by corporation council many times.

The corporation council who has worked on charter revision for Omni, uh, through the sheriff may ask how many how many uh different communities uh this corporation council has worked on charter revisions for that all have to file the same state statutes, so the experience is there.

Um so I I appreciate it that people um are contrary to the decisions I make.

I think a lot of those are political reasons.

They're gonna be upset no matter how I do this.

If I did it the other way, we would have been here doing the same thing.

Um, but here we are, and I'm excited to finally get this moving along and having a council that I know is going to vote this forward and finally get this done.

So thank you.

Thank you, Mr.

Mayor.

Um seeing that no more discussion, uh discussion on the motion is now closed.

All those in favor of the motion signify by saying aye.

Aye.

Any opposed?

Opposed.

No abstentions, so the motion carries.

Do I have a motion to adjourn?

So moved.

I think discussion.

Maybe those in favor.

Aye.

So we are adjourned.

Thank you all very much, everybody.