I know.

I'm gonna call the meeting to order.

It is 6 33 PM on Wednesday, May 6, 2026.

This is in meeting, a regular working meeting of the Charter Revision Commission.

We're gonna start off with the Pledge of Allegiance.

We don't have a flag in here.

I gotta fix that.

So we're gonna face the door, since that's where I imagine the flag could be.

I pledge allegiance.

And to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God.

It was a Zen flag.

A Zen flag.

All right.

Um secretary, if you could do the roll call, please.

Certainly.

Uh Commissioner Burton.

Here.

Commissioner Sepranek.

He is on vacation.

Uh Commissioner Almeida is here.

Uh Commissioner Armstrong.

She cannot make it.

Commissioner Hernandez.

Here.

Commissioner Jowdy?

Here.

Commissioner McCarry.

Here.

Commissioner Putnam?

Here.

Commissioner Rivero.

She also cannot make it.

Okay.

Six.

So there's only four here.

All right.

We have a quorum.

The next item on our actually, you know what?

We're gonna do as it's not on the agenda.

We do have some folks here, so I'm gonna think so.

Ask for a motion to amend the agenda to add public comment.

Um so can I hear a motion to amend the agenda to include public comment?

I make a motion to amend okay.

Motion has made is there a second?

Second second.

Seconded by Commissioner Putnam.

Um discussion on the motion to amend the agenda.

None.

I'll try your mind.

I have the the uh public speaking, right?

Yeah, we're gonna add it.

Okay, very good.

Thank you.

Um so all those in favor say aye.

Aye, aye.

Any opposed?

Motion carries.

Um we are gonna offer public comment.

Um, not statutorily required for this meeting, but there are some folks here that maybe they do want to speak.

So I'm gonna ask anybody from the public would like to address the commission.

Um, I'll give that opportunity.

Um speaker comments to three minutes and um go from there.

So I'll offer it.

Any members from the public here wanna see the commission?

Yes, sir.

If you just want to announce your name and address so the mic picks up.

My thing is the uh four-year term versus a two-year term.

I feel after a two-year term, the people have a chance to voice their opinion based upon promises made or promises kept by the mayor at that time.

They have a chance to voice their opinion at two years, four years they don't.

It can keep on going.

But two years people have a chance to earn their voice and should hear the people talk.

Let the people talk.

It's important.

Thank you.

Thank you, John.

Any other members of the public want to speak?

Councilman Henry.

Michael Henry.

11 Corn Tassel Road.

Also speaking on the four-year term.

I'm not in favor of four-year term because we've had mayors that have 10 terms, eight terms.

Um two years to four years.

It's important because there's a four-term weekends voter oversight.

It doubles the amount of time residents.

Change direction or respond to decisions that don't reflect community priorities.

And looking at the amount of cities out of 169 towns and cities.

Only 19 have four-year terms in the state of Connecticut.

Thank you.

Okay.

Thank you, sir.

Any other members of the public?

Sir?

Jeff Harold at Foster Street.

Um the term is uh it was gonna be a point of contention, it's no matter how we look at this.

And I was kind of curious.

Can somebody on the commission state the package of reasons?

The four-year term is such a big deal.

I I I have I've heard mission pieces and reason, but I would like to see a bullet pointed list of why a four-year term is desirous.

First of all, two-year terms go back to the founding of New England and the town meeting style of government.

There's a lot of history there, but history isn't a thing that should drive this.

I just need to understand better what it is the commission sees in a four-year term that is so beneficial, as opposed to some of the points that have just been brought up, which I you know, and I'm not picking my own head yet, one or the other.

But I need a bullet pointed list of something because it seems to me there's a gap in my knowledge, and maybe it's my fault, but help me out.

Thank you, sir.

Any other members of the public?

Any other members of the public?

Uh Councilman Quella.

Just quickly, thank you for opening up the public.

Um speaking for and maybe I didn't hear it in the beginning.

You haven't approved the minutes from last yet.

We're gonna get there because I think we have to add you to it.

No problem.

Because you need to speak.

Yep.

Thank you.

Dennis, you're last nothing, you're good.

I'm good right now.

Okay.

Um I'll just do it for the record.

Any other members of the public, any other members of the public, any member of the public.

Um seeing no more members of the public, I will close public speaking.

Um, we're gonna go on to the minutes um for our organizational meeting and the public hearing.

Um before we get on to the motion to accept the minutes, I do want to make a correction to the public hearing minutes.

Um at the end of public where the Mr.

Paul, I think he spoke last.

So we have to that's correct.

He did speak last.

Okay, so we're gonna amend the minutes for the public speaking to note that uh Mr.

Coelho spoke.

Um, I don't know the particulars of what he spoke about, but I'll talk to Elisa and um.

I do have some notes if I can share them with the right time.

You want to go to the back of the phone?

Yeah, right now would be perfect.

Yeah.

Thank you.

Yep.

I recall Mike mentioning at the meeting he he was uh in favor of the two-year term, not the four-year term.

Twenty-one personal counsel is what I recall him mentioning 14 and the seven 14 members and seven at large is what he mentioned in the he at the end said to take our time and he appreciated our fact that we're doing the our participation and appreciated the commission.

Perfect.

Okay, um, any other comment on the minutes?

Okay, so um for the motion.

Can I have a motion to accept the minutes for the organizational meeting and the public hearing with the modification of Mr.

Coelho's comments?

So can I get so moved?

So moved by uh Commissioner Jadis or second, second, seconded by Commissioner Hernandez.

Any discussion on the motion to accept the minutes on hearing none.

I will try your minds.

All those in favor signify by saying aye.

Aye.

Any opposed, any abstentions?

The motion carries.

Okay.

Um, and I'll just make sure that uh I'll talk to Elisa to make sure that the minutes um get correct.

So thank you, Commissioner Putnam.

Sure.

All right, uh moving on to item number five.

This is gonna be uh the review of the current charter.

Um, and for the record, uh Commissioner Armstrong has joined us.

Welcome, Glenda.

Uh so for number five.

Um, I put this on the agenda.

Um, it's fairly common.

I've seen it done in other municipalities where at our first working meeting we get a little bit of a presentation from um the corporation council um or charter council on um just a little walkthrough of the actual physical document as it's currently written to sort of go over what each section does, the bigger ones that tend to have more of an effect on the day-to-day operations of the city, um, so we can get our bearings um for a good discussion.

So um with that, I'm gonna turn it over to council.

Joe, if you want to it's your show.

So however you want to do it.

Thank you, Mr.

Chairman.

Um good evening, Commission members.

My name is Joseph Mortality.

I'm an attorney with the law firm of Craig Anderson here in Danbury.

Um, I also work with the Office of the Corporation Council.

Uh I've seen many of you before.

Um, it's a privilege to serve on this uh commission as as commission uh council along with my law partner Dan Castle Grande.

Um I just want to go through without getting into too many of the details, um some of some of the really relevant salient parts of this charter, just so we all go forward have a kind of a working understanding of the different components, you know, what each section discusses.

I know we'll get into a lot of this um in granular detail, but I just want to sort of give you with a broad overview for now.

Um I have about a five-page outline.

I'll try not to go through every comment, but please feel free to do every comment.

Okay.

More more information is better.

All right, very much sure thank.

Um so we have we have eight chapters to the charter.

Um these are broken down into various topics.

The there's a preamble statement in the charter, um, which is you know, basically identifying that uh the charter is designed for strong political leadership, uh, you know, ethical representation by the legislature.

Uh and this is sort of uh uh summary statement on what the document is intended to be, which is a live and breathing document that occasionally gets examined by this commission uh every so often.

Um then there's more substantive components in each of the chapters.

So the first chapter of this chart talks about how uh the city of Danbury is a municipal corporation with territorial limits.

Uh those are meets and bounds.

You'll see it exactly in in the charter under section one-two.

Um, because this document gets amended time to time, uh, there's language in chapter one saying how the city does remain uh legally liable and responsible for any pre-existing applications that may predate any charter revision because again, the city's been around a long time and this charter is modified every so often.

So you know, so we we assume our obligations uh as a city going forward for any pre-existing obligations that uh may have been contracted by the city or agreed to.

Um we exercise all rights that are expressly granted by the charter, and by we I mean the city collectively exercises all municipal rights granted by the charter, as well as our state constitution, common law, political statutes, and any special acts passed by our state legislature.

Um that's all under chapter one.

So it's really just designed to discuss the general powers that the city has, you know, the charter's governance as a document relative to applicable state law.

Um, and you know, we don't really um haven't seen amendments to this section in this recent time, but but you know, we can look at this if you want to.

Uh chapter two really gets into um officer positions within the city uh and the terms of certain positions.

For example, it talks about how the mayor has a two-year term, the city council having two-year terms for all one-year members, uh discusses the board of ed, which is a little bit different.

The board of ed has 11 resident electors with four-year terms.

That's different than the mayor's office and the city council.

Um there's a reference to our legislative assistant, which we'll have to amend because the charter, I believe, still has Elisa as uh city clerk, but but she should be at our legislative assistant.

She has a two-year term.

Uh there's a treasurer for two years, we have constables, five across the city with two-year terms, the town clerks are two-year term, and then other positions would be the zoning commission, uh, where we have nine members serving two-year terms and three alternates on the commission with two-year terms, as you know, the zoning commission looks at applications filed for certain land uses within the city.

Um, you know, they look at special exception applications, uh, things of that nature.

So they're a very important commission within our city.

Uh, under chapter two, you will see also a discussion of the reapportionment process.

Um, and I expect us to have a robust discussion on this.

I know comments came up at the public hearing about reapportionment.

Um, so if you look at chapter two, there is a discussion about reapportionment.

Just for um this commission's edification, uh there's a commission that serves from City Council.

They're supposed to give an advisory plan to the city council, which then can look at that plan for reapportionment and make edits as it deems fit.

But reapportionment is covered under chapter two.

Um, and that's a commission that meets every 10 years, which is a legal requirement set by state statute.

Uh, there's language in chapter two, which I think is important, saying that to be uh to hold any city office, you have to be uh an elector of the city.

You have to be reside here, you have to be in the lecture.

Um, and if you're on a city council position, uh you must be a resident of the ward.

Uh obviously we have that large position, but you know, when you're running for a certain board, you have to be a resident of that board.

Uh moving to chapter three, that gets into duties and obligations of our city council, which is the legislative arm of the city.

As I referenced earlier, there's 21 members part of the city council.

Uh this is not a compensation position, except uh per the charter to defray reasonable expenses incurred in connection with city council duties.

Um the council, uh, as many of you know has the right to enact amend your appeal ordinances that are not consistent with the charter or state law.

Um they uh the commission, or sorry, the city council can actually um create commissions.

Um they can remove commissions through ordinances, uh the same is true for boards and departments.

We don't see that very often, um, but but that is a right under chapter three of the charter for the city council.

Um there's uh language in chapter three talking about how um to have a form of the council, there must be majority of members.

That's that's pretty standard.

Uh resolutions are enacted by majority vote of the council, ordinances are enacted by majority vote, um, but you need at least one public hearing before you enact an ordinance, unless, of course, there's an emergency purpose that the city is dealing with.

So let's say there's a uh health and safety crisis, and we need to enact an ordinance to address that.

Uh, if that's the case, there's no requirement for a public hearing because of the urgency and time sensitivity uh associated with that with that situation.

So that language is in chapter three.

Um there's additional discussion about the ordinances need to be approved by the mayor's office.

Uh, there's an interesting back and forth that happens if uh disapproved.

If the mayor's office uh were to disapprove of an ordinance, it's sent back to the council who can still pass that, but it needs to be a two-thirds vote of the entire city council membership, not those present, but the entire council membership.

Um that's just we've had that law, uh, that language in chapter three for for many years.

Uh council committees, right now for the charter, they're ad hoc committees only.

There's no language uh allowing for a standing committees.

I know that was a topic of conversation in our public hearing.

Um so if the council wants to, if this commission wants to look at that, it can, but right now under chapter three, we can only do uh ad hoc committees right now.

And also the council has the right to conduct investigations into any city agency or city office uh for good cause.

That's under chapter three.

So we've gone through the legislative arm of the city, which is the city council.

We've gone through uh certain um officer positions and elected positions.

Uh chapter four is specifically concerning uh the office of the mayor.

Obviously, the mayor is the chief executive officer of the city.

Um the mayor's compensation is set by the city council.

That's also subject to applicable state statutes.

Um mayor can recommend necessary measures to the council as a recommendation.

Um the council cannot pass any sort of ordinance that would diminish the mayor's powers and duties as a chief executive officer.

So we always have to be conscious whenever we're looking at a proposed ordinance, how that impacts uh the mayor's office and whether it's infringing on any duties that are expressly granted to the mayor's office.

One topic that came up is how much the mayor's office can accept as far as donations, gifts, or requests.

That's covered under chapter four, and right now that amount is one thousand dollars from any one donor in any one fiscal year.

All right.

So if the if this commission wants to look at that, um we'd be amending language in chapter four.

Uh moving to chapter five, this gets into certain um according to boards and commissions within the city.

Uh I won't go through all of them, but but certainly you know, some of the critical ones are the planning commission, the zoning board of appeals, the board of assessment appeals, uh we have the parking authority.

Um the zoning board of appeals is different from the zoning commission because the zoning board of appeals handles variance applications, which is not something that goes before uh a zoning commission.

Um, the board of assessment appeals uh are appointed that has members appointed by the mayor, and they serve five-year terms on a rotating basis.

So those are some of the appointed boards covered under chapter five.

Chapter six concerns city employees, city offices, and certain departments.

Um this will cover, for example, the treasurer's office who has custody of all city funds.

Uh, some administrative departments, these are created or have been created over time by the city council.

Um heads of these departments are appointed by the mayor and confirmed by the council.

So some of these departments would be office of the corporation council, uh, department of finance, department of public works, the police department, fire department, um, human services, um, parks and rec.

These are all uh administrative departments, again created by the council with department heads appointed by the mayor.

Um so again, this is a little bit different from from, for example, the the elected positions we talked about in chapter two.

These are these are offices that are created by the council and department heads appointed by the mayor.

Um to chapter seven, this concerns finance and taxation matters within the city.

I know we just went through budgets, um, and um that's always a uh very you know detailed uh intensive process done by all departments under chapter seven.

The mayor presents a budget to the council.

That budget has to have has to have certain requirements, um, it has to uh outline the financial policy of uh city government that um budgets maybe the council have to discuss estimates of revenue, it needs to include an itemized estimate of expenditures, and then the council has to adopt the budget and file it with our legislative assistance.

Um keep in mind if the council wants to add amounts or programs or increase, decrease, or strike out amounts in the budget, those changes need to happen by an affirmative vote of two-thirds of all council members, not those present, but all those within the council, which is 21 members.

Um, when the council adopts the budget, it has to fix the city's mill rate, which of course is really important for taxation purposes.

Um, chapter seven, emergency appropriations can be made upon the recommendation of the mayor's office and by a vote of two-thirds of the entire membership of the city council, and you need a public hearing as well for an emergency appropriation.

Um sections in chapter seven on uh borrowing and bonding.

Um there's some language in this chapter saying that no bond shall be issued for a term that's longer than the estimated life of the improvement for which the bond was issued, but in no event can the bond be for a term longer than 20 years.

Again, this is language within uh within chapter seven of our charter on the question of bonding.

Uh, another topic that came up at the public hearing within chapter seven is um you know, bond amounts, right?

What's the what's the maximum bond amount that they can have?

So you'll see in this section language saying that if the council votes to issue bonds uh in a principal amount that would have the total amount in any fiscal year to exceed three million dollars, um, then the ordinance authorizing the issuance needs to be submitted uh for the approval or disapproval of the electors of the city at the next municipal election or at a special meeting called by the mayor's office.

All right.

So again, uh the bond, if the bonds exceed three million, then we need an organizing, authoring and authorizing an issuance over that amount.

Um, and then we need to have uh we need to have approval and a special meeting as well.

So, you know, that adds additional layers of procedural requirements.

If this commission wanted to look at that section and propose any changes, we would need to.

I'm not saying um not to look at it, but if you did, we're gonna need to add some additional procedural requirements uh to just make sure that you know the public is being adequately noticed about this issue.

Um lastly, I'm just gonna quickly go through chapter eight.

This is the final chapter in our charter.

It's sort of a catch-all chapter.

Um, a lot of this is somewhat um some of it is is legal ease in nature.

I'm not gonna necessarily go through that portion maybe right now.

Um, but the biggest part of this chapter is uh in my judgment at least, the conflicts of interest section.

So we have a conflicts of conflicts of interest language uh within chapter eight.

It's specifically section eight-three of our charter.

And it says uh that a conflict of interest is having an interest in substantial conflict with the discharge of duties, um, or uh with the responsibilities as prescribed by Connecticut law.

Um for example, if there's um business interests that would cause a conflict that needs to be identified.

Uh, if there is uh any direct or indirect monetary gain or loss, that could be a potential conflict of interest.

Um, the uh if there's any services that are provided which would you know benefit uh uh you know city personnel, we need to be aware of that as a conflict of interest.

Um again, we're here to serve the city's here to serve the public.

Um, so we need to be very conscious of any matters that could potentially delve into a conflicts of interest situation.

Um additionally, under this section, there's language saying that all elected or appointed city officers or city employees are prohibited from accepting or receiving any money or anything of value or any promise, obligation, or contract, or future reward or compensation.

So again, that's applicable uh not just to any one office but to all elected uh or appointed city officers or city employees.

You'll find that under section 8.3 are conflicting.

This is especially important for uh city officers or city employees to consider whenever there's a conflict in the event of a potential conflict.

It's certainly encouraged that that officer or employee speak with um, you know, it could start with corporation council, right, to sort of evaluate the legitimacy of any conflict of interest.

Um we want to be very careful of that.

So we do have language on conflicts of interest.

Um, if this commission wants to add to it, um, we can talk about that obviously, but um we do I know there was some discussion about this at the last meeting.

We do have a provision on this subject.

It's just a question of whether the commission wants to uh consider any modifications to it.

Um so I know I said a lot um to try to distill this down as much as I can.

We have eight chapters, um discussing the city's general powers, its function as a municipal corporation.

We talked about terms of certain city uh offices, like city council, the mayor's office.

Um we quickly identified the reapportionment in chapter two.

We talked about the legislative duties of the city council under chapter three, what the council has as far as latitude.

Um we talked about the mayor's office who serves again as the chief executive officer of the city.

We discussed that any modifications to this charter or to any ordinances, which we're not gonna deal with, but at least with this charter, we have to make sure that we don't infringe on the mayor's office's um duties and and authority as CEO of the city.

Um we talked about the restrictions on gifts to the mayor's office.

Uh chapter five, we went through some of the appointed boards, like the zoning board of appeals and the board of assessment appeals.

Chapter six again focuses on administrative departments largely.

The budget uh obligations that the city has bonding limitations, that's uh something that we just talked about briefly.

We'd have to look at chapter seven for that.

And then again, as I just discussed, chapter eight has a lot of um uh catch-all provisions, but the critical ones because in chapter eight are the complex of interest provision.

Um by the way, one thing I just want to mention also uh charter review must occur every 10 years.

That's a requirement of our charter, and I believe requirement of state law.

And then lastly, uh any charter amendments, so any amendments that may come forward uh would take effect within 30 days after approval by the electors of the city of Danbury.

So any modifications or changes don't happen immediately, it's within 30 days after approval.

So hopefully I didn't put everyone to sleep, but but that is um my quick overview of our charter.

Um I'll defer to you on that, Mr.

Chairman.

Awesome.

Thank you very much, counselor.

Um really appreciate that.

That was very very helpful.

So I'll open it up to um any questions from the commission.

Yeah, uh question about uh you just mentioned about according to state statute, we have to do this every 10 years.

Um my question is are there uh are you gonna outline other places in the in the charter that's part of state statute, so we can say, well, this is here because the state requires us to have this as opposed to just the charter committee.

The city of Dan Brah has done.

Of course, of course, as we go through sections of the charter, we will uh to the extent that there's any modifications proposed, our office will cross-reference any requested changes with all applicable law to make sure that we're not engaging in any modifications that create a statute short issue.

So a lot of a lot of this is subject to state statute, some of it is more discretionary to the city.

Um, but of course, we won't advise on any modifications until we vetted it through the general statutes, uh, and and quite frankly, also our state constitution, because the charter is subject to that governing document as well.

Okay, yeah.

Uh any other questions?

The question um at last week's public hearing there were several several members of the public that um recommended adding a section on ethics.

I know you touched on that briefly when we were going through the conflicts of interest.

Um would you suggest that if we were to add language specifically related to ethics and ethical behavior um for it to be a subsection within conflict of interest, or would that be an additional section within uh chapter eight?

Where do you recommend that living?

That's a good question.

My uh recommendation on that would be that we don't necessarily make it a subsection of conflicts of interest, but I would have it as a provision uh within chapter eight.

So in other words, we could make it let's say hypothetically chapter eight goes up to eight-12.

Um we can make it we could modify well.

Actually, we could make it 812 and then make a 12813.

Um we could make that could be a hypothetical change.

I wouldn't I wouldn't make it a subsection of the conflicts of interest provision because those are two distinct issues, but we can certainly make it a uh subsection of chapter eight, section eight-whatever number we decide to give into it.

That'd be my recommendation.

Thank you.

Just one comment or question.

Would any donations be a conflict in the conflict of interest in the mayor's office or would it be in that category similar to what as well?

Oh, like if the mayor received a donation, would that in and of itself be a conflict?

Yes.

No, I mean we would have to obviously we have to make sure that the that no elected or appointed city officer or employee it has some sort of benefit behind, like example, if the donation is gonna lead to a um uh some benefit, right?

Personal personally, right?

Sure, that's different than just donating, making a donation to the mayor's office.

So, you know, obviously that would need to be vetted, right, as a transactional matter, but but yeah, there's no um the idea is not to chill donations, right?

Uh we just have to make sure that we're staying within the parameters of whatever the maximum amount is.

Um then obviously within the donation, you have to make sure that there's no benefit uh going personally to any elected or appointed city officer or city employee.

Thank you.

Any other questions on the presentation so far?

We can always come back to them if we have to, but um, it's a big document.

So um, well, I say big, um, it's shorter compared to a lot of uh other cities' charters, so which is uh a good thing sometimes.

Um but okay.

So that being said, we kind of have our bearings a little bit on the document itself, kind of the sections on what um each chapter sort of talks about.

Um so moving forward on our agenda tonight.

Um I kind of wanted to start the conversation as to what our sort of initial out of the gate prioritization of issues is going to be.

This is obviously not all encompassing if we you know, as we're going through the document in a couple meetings, feel like you know what, maybe we should talk about this section.

Um we can always add that to our list of um sections to look at, but I wanted to just sort of go uh get the feel from the commission and everybody, what your takes were on the public hearing, what did we hear?

Um, what are some of the big picture issues we should focus on and sort of get sort of a little bit of an initial um priority list of uh the issues that were raised.

So I'll open it up if anybody wants to start it, but I really want this to kind of be a dialogue amongst the commission uh what we thought, what we think is important um to focus on, um, because if we're gonna stick with our timeline, we're gonna have to do this fairly um expeditiously, but we have to do it very carefully.

So I will open the floor to my fellow commissioners and Joe, feel free to jump in.

You're part of the discussion too.

So I'll open the floor if anybody wants to kick us off.

I heard quite a bit about interjects and conflicts.

Very much so.

Um the other thing I heard about was the digital publication of this rather than the newspaper.

So that actually that brings up a good question.

Um Dan.

So I know there's there's pending legislation, Joe.

I don't know if it has been passed yet, but what it would do is it would allow municipalities to just publish virtually on their website instead of in a newspaper.

So I did see that.

I think it's still floating around in the general assembly right now, but I know it's gaining some momentum.

Yeah, we still can look at that.

I'm just thinking like hypothetically, if the commission wanted to adopt the electronic publication of newspapers.

Is there I mean, we should, I mean, honestly, we should know either way whether it gets passed or not by the time we're done doing our work.

But at least for the time being, legally speaking, say we didn't want to touch the charter for publication and we wanted to keep it as circulation in a newspaper, but the state statute says you can do it via virtual publication.

Would we be in breach?

Like, is this something that we're gonna have to address to find us the other public act is phrased?

Um if it's acquiring wiring electronic publication, then certainly we'll need to make some amendments to our charter.

If it's giving towns the option of the discretion, because you know some Stanbury has the resources to do that.

Um there are some towns in the state that don't.

So uh they may only be able to some town halls are only within two days a week at the state.

So um we wouldn't have we need to see what that language is saying specifically.

If it if it's giving us the latitude, then by all means we could amend the section we and we'd be consistent with the new statute.

Okay, um, but uh I think we need this until number one.

I don't think that's been passed yet, right?

But but assuming it is passed, then we just we have to make sure it gives us enough latitude to to then make adjustments to our charter, sure.

Okay, yeah, so sorry, just to piggyback on that.

Um, I presume things and advancements in technology will continue to evolve over time.

Um, would we be better off referencing the general statutes, the state general statutes to say, right, we will publicize and um right and publish according to you could right so that we don't have to be bound by the language in the charter, but we're reflecting what will be relevant in the state statutes at the time.

You could, yeah, you could.

I mean, we could even have a I mean you could actually have a general.

I mean, section 1.4, the charter actually does sort of have sort of a catch-all provision that says that we can exercise all rights granted by statute.

So you know, you could conceivably have a qualifier on every chapter in the charter, subject to changes in the law.

So um rather than maybe you say that you know at multiple points, we could maybe try to capture that under chapter one of the charter.

Um because you know, we are subject to state statute as well.

So to the extent there's a there's a clash, right?

You know, we have to obviously look at the statute.

Um hopefully that answers your question.

I don't think we have to necessarily do that every time with every section if there is a potential change in the law, especially since we only meet every 10 years, right, for charter review.

But um I think we'd be okay under under section one point four.

Um I think we'd be okay under one point under one-four.

And actually also under section eight-six.

It says all general laws and special acts of the state of Connecticut applicable to the city, so continue for in full force and effect.

Um except insofar as they're consistent with provisions of the charter.

Again, if there's a if there's a clash with state law, we don't want the city to be breaching statute.

So no, we would have to with that.

Um I think there's enough language in the charter right now, so we don't need the qualifier every time.

Although I'm sorry, can you reread that sentence for me?

Because the way that that reads to me means right, full force effect except as a couple of things.

Ah, the city shall get I thought I thought it was the state shall continue in full full force except if the city in accepted so far as that makes up sorry.

Except insofar as they're inconsistent with the versions of the charter.

Yeah, yep, yep.

Sorry, that makes sense.

No, it's it's uh it's I understand we could work on some of these documents are uh are drafted uh you know from years years ago.

So we could always improve language where we need to to make it less ambiguous.

Any other around the room?

What we need feedback from the public hearing?

Yeah, well, I think the uh four-year term and two-year term was a high priority of discussion that I heard a lot and um councilman Chanese brought up certification for certain department heads that they have qualifications to meet their duties as their jobs that is what I recall is a good point that I heard some position being appointed read and elected and it'll be still legislative assistant town clerk, okay.

All right, keep it going.

What else was any other comments?

The bond limits certainly came up quite a bit.

Right.

I think that would be helpful.

There was a discussion on the number of people in city council as well.

Sorry, say that one more time.

Whether a number of people in city council as well as representing their wards and and uh council at large or city at large.

This doesn't mean we're going one way or the other.

I just want these are just ideas that we should talk about as we so whatever we heard, I think is important.

Um there is one thing that um it didn't, I don't think it directly came up during the public hearing, but it is something that I think over the past couple of years, um just with the book because the board of ed as counsel told us is a little bit different, they're in large part governed by state statute.

Um but I think something we should look at.

This is my my opinion, and obviously I'm open to hearing everybody's thoughts when we when we get there in discussion.

Um, but the financial oversight of the board of education.

Um I think over the past several years there's been issues at the Board of Ed.

And I think just maybe looking at if there's possibilities for more direct like oversight and collaboration between because I know the collaboration between the city and the board of ed is better, but I think maybe if we look at it through the charter on um more direct financial oversight of the board of ed is just something we could potentially look at for some municipalities have language in there in their charters on this, but I just think it might be good for us to take a look at that.

So that'll be one of my one of my suggestions.

Um about standing committees versus ad hoc committees.

Right?

Yeah, we don't know.

I would like to know the definition of the I mean I can generally tell you that would be helpful for me.

Yeah, please.

Um I can generally explain that, you know, an ad hoc committee is called by the council.

Um, matters are often referred out to an ad hoc uh they meet right here in this room, and um there's usually a discussion about uh a proposed action, oftentimes it's an ordinance.

Um but you know, there's resolutions brought before the ad hoc.

So so that's something that's specifically called for by the city council for a certain item with a standing committee.

You would basically have a committee available at the ready at any given point in time uh to look at an issue.

So you don't need to wait for a city council meeting to refer a matter out to an ad hoc, you could just have it go before the standing committee.

Um I can't speak to uh why our charter only allows for ad hocs.

I assume that was a decision made over the years by the city, um, but certainly a topic of conversation.

I think it would be helpful to learn it more.

Yeah, and to understand what the counter-arguments are for either side of the argument.

And there's a time limits to like on each, if it's an ad hoc or a standing committee or time frames of decisions to be made on topics.

I don't care how much we yeah, I don't think I don't I don't know.

I'm just curious.

Yeah, I don't know if it's ever if it's never really even been developed that far because ad hoc's just I mean, for my time on the council, they're fairly quick turnarounds.

Conclusions quick.

Yeah, which I think is the idea of an ad hoc is to just get a quick workshop done of whatever that item is, and then I think it's important that it's city get decisions quickly to a certain degree.

Yeah, and it's also not, and I'm just thinking like further down the road, if standing committees were to exist, right?

Not saying that they will, um, the council could probably fix by bylaws or rules that standing committees shall report out every so often or whatever.

I I think there's room to maneuver and play with the standing committees in the ad hocs to avoid kind of getting things stuck, but but it definitely came up a lot, the standing committee.

It did.

Yeah.

What else?

Um the town clerk position, I think that was already mentioned came up.

Name changed superintendent highways.

Yep, yes.

There was a lot of technical changes that Taylor presented, which I think as we go as we go through, and we can get more clarification from her on specifically what technical changes would be, which aren't really substantive.

Because I think uh like changing the pronouns and everything to just gender neutral language, which is pretty common practice.

Um so that's something that um could be easily done.

Yeah, yeah, please.

I wanted to I was curious about when I read through the home document, is why do some jobs and job descriptions of the certain ones don't?

And there's no qualifying uh of who should be so we add positions or uh reposition or uh change uh job descriptions.

Uh almost about you know last week's hearing was that um I was confused why certain jobs were there, right?

And certain others were not.

And I don't know if it was from that was committed to the question earlier.

Is it according to state statute that they're chief is yeah, but not the uh and anybody else in the file department or something of that surface work?

I was confused the FAM marshal, for example, is governed by statutes from the state.

And you have to have certain qualifications that the file marshal, but it's not in the charter, right?

I gotcha.

Okay.

I mean, job descriptions in general we can take a look at and see if we need to beef some of them up, right?

Or you know, sometimes sometimes less is more when it comes to those two, right?

I I would I that's not that's in the question because um and I'm sure that the itch out of that uh is going to have uh a glance at this and and talk about and make suggestions about this uh as it relates to personnel and hiring and that kind of thing.

So if we can have a presentation, or at least some kind of look and see about uh the personnel, because like I said, you know the confusing when some appear, some don't appear.

Like you said, the glance and some levels uh in-depth.

Yeah.

And so I I think that needs to be said since the budget is heavy on personnel.

I'm with you.

So I think uh kind of the the plan moving forward with the commission, at least the design is going to be when we get sort of our little list of priority items, um, we're gonna break them down.

And I think this is how it was done eight, 17, 18 years ago is they broke it down into sections, and when we got to each section, say we were talking about personnel HR, we'll bring in the department heads for those relevant sections, they'll come in, they'll talk to us, be part of the discussion, and we can go through and redline it more closely.

So we'll get all the all the people we need in the room will be in the room when we when we get to the substantive conversations of of those those areas.

Um like something just to add on since we're on the topic.

Um it came up a couple of times the residency requirement for police and fire chief.

That might be something to look at compared to other neighbors we have, whether that's antiquated or whether there's still reason to have it.

Um not only um the residence requirement of those people, but I was surprised a couple of years ago we had um some I was told that according to our charter, people didn't have to live in Danbury to run for office until after they actually uh ran, I guess uh was selected by the electors.

Uh I I was able to when I read this a few weeks ago as LEADC.

Yeah, what it does say like you you have to be a resident to take to take office.

Where is that?

So no person shall be eligible for election to any city office who is not at the time of their election an elector of the city.

So yeah, I mean that might maybe that's something we want to look at.

Um let's see.

Anyone else?

I want to monopolize the conversation.

Yeah, Wilson, please.

Yes, thank you so much.

Um said that the budget is the most one of the most important documents in the city, but he talked about some inconsistencies.

He said 11 votes to approve it and 14 to change it.

Can you explain to me a little bit about these inconsistencies on the process?

Well, I did not look at that for today's meeting, but don't and you don't have to shoot from the hip.

If you want to, yeah, I mean is it okay if like he gets back to you?

Yeah, sort of question.

Yeah, we can we can look at that.

I would like to have that part of the charter very clear on my mind.

Let's see.

Because we are unique.

What Dambury is unique where um we can appoint a count a firm as the corporation council, which is which is interesting.

I I like it, but that's something discussion about deputy corporation council.

Oh, yeah, the name changes, yeah.

So, yeah, so definitely let's look at corporation council too.

I have a question on a comment that was made, and I um forgive my ignorance and not understanding um what had happened um in past elections, but um someone had stood up and basically said um you know they had won, but they had lost uh and their vote right electorate didn't the voice of the electorate didn't count, and I you forgive me because I don't actually know what transpired, and so I'm just curious as to what that is referencing.

I actually so I personally was not I'm not familiar with what we referenced to.

Yeah, so I I could actually speak to that.

So the way that the charter is set up for the city council, we have 21 members, obviously, seven at large, fourte wards.

Um, but Danbury's unique, there's a little table in the charter that had we elected to do a minority representation rule in our charter, which state statute has a little quirk in the law that says um you don't need minority representation if you elect your legislature by ward or district, which we do.

So whenever that was put in the charter, whether it was 20 years ago or whatever, um, there's sort of a sliding scale that if one party sweeps all of the at large or all of the ward seats, only a maximum of four from that party can win the at-large seats.

So that leaves three from the minority party that would automatically be seated, even if all seven at-large seats had more votes than the three of the other parties.

So what happened in the past election was all 21 council members received the most votes.

They all happen to be from the same party, but because of our minority representation rule, um, three members of the minority party were seated over three that had more votes than that.

I see.

So that that sort of is what happened, which might be something to look at since it came up.

I mean, somebody spoke about it, so we could certainly look at that too, since it's technically not a requirement to have it in there.

Um what else did we have?

Thank you.

Thank you.

And again, we can always add more stuff as we get going to our list, but this is at least a good start.

There's also a comment about how much time the public had access to the budget before.

Oh, yes.

Um certainly something.

Okay.

Also, the timing of the budget too might be something to look at.

Some municipalities have the budget has to be adopted by June, which could be something to look at.

I I don't necessarily mean either way on it.

Um, especially because of when the state budget is finalized, you know.

Similar situation that just happened.

We happen to see what we were getting in additional aid the night of or the day after the vote.

So that might be something we want to take a look at when we get to the finance section.

What am I missing?

Anything else jumping out at anybody?

The common denominator with police require seemed everybody was happy that it was in place, and they kind of liked the charter the way it was regarding those two apartments.

And then I just one other thing.

I remembered it was an employee.

I think it's trying to see his name right here.

Tom Miller just brought up something to do with the uh benefits for pensions of the city.

I think it was something to do with that for city worker.

So those are the big ones from my nodes that I shared.

And anybody else have anything to add for at least for the time being.

I wasn't expecting tonight to be a marathon meeting, so the marathon meetings will come, just not tonight.

Conversation about the grant process.

Okay.

Oh, yes.

Yep, yep.

For accepting grants, yeah.

With a thousand dollar proportion or something else.

Okay, so when you apply for a grant, which you have the process is slow when there's no match requirement.

Yeah.

All right.

Anyone else?

Yeah.

Yeah, that one thing that came up quite a bit were technology.

And you had mentioned it earlier that we lead to notify the public.

But technology in general being uh major issues uh now and how that's going to be handled.

As far as FOS and that kind of thing.

Um was important.

I think because the FOA laws have kind of changed.

And it was this so uh I think we need to as well as technology in general.

Yeah.

All right.

Anyone else?

If you forget something, we'll freak out.

Next meeting, we'll just bring it back up.

So all right.

So we we at least have a good starting point, um, which this will just dovetail nicely into the next part.

Um the chairman's report.

Um, I don't have anything formal really to report out.

I do want to thank everybody for the full participation.

We have the public hearing.

It was very good that we had full ten minutes there to hear everything from the public.

We had very, very good turnout.

Um moving forward as we get through the working meetings.

Um, I'm gonna mock up a little outline as to which sections we'll lump together so we get the right um personnel from the city here to help us through as we start talking about them.

Um so for next week, we'll once I look through everything and organize it next week.

We'll have a block of different sections.

So we're not gonna do every section every night.

I think that would just be I don't think that would be efficient.

I think it would be better if we broke it up into sections, focused in on those and just do one full meeting on like a chapter, maybe two, and then have our red line discussion and then move on through the charter, and then um when we get to the tail end, we can start um working on the draft report in a couple months.

So that's all I have of substance.

Um it just and everybody's been great about letting me know if you can't make it or if you're gonna be running late, so please just keep the communication going.

Um, because we do have a small commission, so if we run into quorum issues, I'd like to know sooner than later so we don't all show up and the public um is here and we can't have a meeting because we don't have a quorum.

Um so uh just keep that in mind.

Um that's all I have for chairman's report.

Um other business, open it up to the commission.

Anybody has anything they want to share, any comments, um things they want us to do, like procedurally moving forward or ideas for the path forward.

This is you know, it's always an open dialogue, so that's how I want to comments.

Some people are concerned about how it's being rushed, and I just want to know how you can explain that to us why there's that feeling since it seems like you want to take your time and get a draft thing in a couple of months that seems like it's not being rushed.

Yeah, so I mean, rushed is a subjective term, right?

So I think you know, we don't have uh we we went through a lot of topics tonight, but um if we really there's a difference between being efficient and taking your time, right?

So I think you can be efficient while also doing your due diligence and actually focusing on what really meant.

So like we talk we have a lot of at least this is me speaking as Joe Brayon right now.

So like we had a maybe 15 or 20 items we talked about tonight that we would like to work on.

If we can only get to 10 of them, and we feel like those 10 things we talked about were super important to us that we really wanted to hyper focus on and get those on the ballot in November, that's our prerogative.

If we only want to change one thing in the charter, that's our prerogative too.

But it's really gonna be up to us if we want to take on a bunch of items, that's gonna be on us to do it right.

But I I think rushed is an easy term to throw around, but if you can do it right and you can do it quick, I I think that's good government.

In light of that, I have a question there.

Um do if the committee only produces one change.

Sure.

Okay.

So that did that entail that the the commission will be staying alive, or it doesn't entail that that's the only substitute change.

If it we mean in this time in this window that we have talked about.

So if this commission recommends one thing and we send one thing to the council and they send that one thing to the voters for referendum in November, this commission dissolves and they would have to restart the process to open it back up.

So that's kind of another another commission, nine nine new people, or if they want to reappoint us again.

But like the I would like to get as much as we can done in this um this charter, but uh if we only submit one thing, then that's our legacy.

But then in my emergency asking, and then in light of the if we only did one item and the chart it says every 10 years, we have to wait 10 years before we uh could be another commission that shows up.

I think it says I I think it says like at least every 10 years, so you could open it up next year if you really wanted to.

So you could do it 10 times in 10 years, right?

But you have to at a minimum do it every 10 years.

Or you have to at a minimum act on a resolution so you can consider the resolution and then like choose not to open.

Typical quantity of items that are recommended through the evaluation of the existing charter that the council listens to.

I don't I don't think so.

It's our it's up to us, yeah.

Okay.

Whenever we feel most so good.

I mean, Mr.

Chairman, just one more.

Just uh uh put a period on our last discussion on charter review.

So it's at least once every 10 years uh that we examine our charter.

So that means you can do it more, obviously.

You just have to make sure you do it at least once every 10.

Uh reapportionment is uh at least once every 10, but theoretically, the council can be busy reapportion written at any time.

So uh and I'm referring to uh section eight ten of our charter for the at least once every 10 years we do a charter review.

All right, anything else for the good of the order?

Okay, so uh for next week we are gonna have a much more substantive conversation on a few key items.

So it'll be a much more in-depth conversation.

We'll get people from uh the city in as well.

Um so do your homework this week on the charter.

Get familiar with some of the stuff we talked about tonight, and um I will be in touch with the agenda for next week.

So no other uh comments or discussion.

Do I have a motion to adjourn?

Make a motion to adjourn.

Is there a second?

Good seconded.

Any discussion on the motion to adjourn?

No, no.

I hear none, all those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed?

Abstentions, motion carries.

We are adjourned at 7 34.

All right, thank you all very much.

Thank you.

Thank you.