I will call the meeting to order at 6 33 p.m.

This is the meeting of a meeting of the Charter Revision Commission.

It is Wednesday, May 13th, 2026.

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

And we still don't have a flag, so we're gonna mayor's wearing a flag.

So we're just we're gonna look this way.

And uh if uh councilman Busade, if you could lead us in the pledge, please.

Sure, thank you.

I pledge allegiance.

And to the Republic.

So it just says under God, indivisible with regard to justice of all.

Thanks very much.

Madam Secretary, if you could do the roll call, please.

Commissioner Britton here.

Commissioner Sefranik.

On his way.

Commissioner Almeida's here.

Commissioner Armstrong?

Here.

Commissioner Hernandez?

Yeah.

Commissioner Jowdy.

Commissioner McCarry?

Here.

Commissioner Putnam?

Here.

And Commissioner Rivero.

Here.

Six, seven.

Seven present.

Thank you, Madam Secretary.

Um, we are going to be move on to number four, which is public participation.

Um, if any members of the public that are here that wish to address the commission, I know we did invite some electeds and representatives from the city here.

Um, they're going to be actually part of the discussion.

So if you do have remarks, we'll save those until we get to the substance of the meeting.

But any members of the public are here and wish to address the commission.

Uh, now's your time.

Please keep your uh remarks to three minutes, please.

So does anybody from the public wish to address the commission?

Mr.

Levy.

Commissioner Jowdy is present.

Members of the commission, I want to address the argument that extending the mayor's term from two years to four years would allow the mayor to focus more on governing and less on campaigning.

That claim sounds reasonable on the surface, but it does not hold up under practical and structural review.

Long terms do not reduce politics, they reduce accountability.

A four-year term gives an incumbent significantly more time to consolidate political strength.

Fundraising advantages already favor the incumbent.

An extended term only widens that gap.

Donors support sitting office holders because they control the levers of government.

It becomes more entrenched.

The second argument offered is continue uh continuity, but continuity in municipal operations comes from professional staff, not from the length of the mayor's term.

Losing a department head in public works planning, finance, or any other major division disrupts city operations far more than a change in the mayor's office.

Darren Green's own downtown improvements have demonstrate that this clearly.

Similar to the two-term limitation applied to the president of the United States.

A long-term without limit risk creating decades-long incumbencies that are extremely difficult to challenge, which are not healthy for the process of government.

Finally, the commission should consider campaign spending limits for mayor's race when uh fundraising advantages dominate elections.

Your charge is to strengthen the charter in ways that improve transparency, accountability, and public trust.

The four terms, a four-year terms alone, does not achieve those goals.

Any change of the magnitude must be paired with safeguards that protect public interest, not just political interest.

Whoever happens to hold the office.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr.

Lee.

I apologize for not saying this at the onset.

But if you could just say your name and your address so the mic picks you up.

My name is Warren Levy.

I live at five drive.

Thank you, sir.

Any other members of the public wish to address the commission?

Three three.

And when I was in college, I spent my last year in Washington, DC at American University, and I had the pleasure of working on Bill Raffer's campaign in 1978.

He won his seat for Congress from Danbury.

And the next day he asked me to meet him at 6:30 in the morning at the train station.

And I asked him why.

And he said, you tell me.

I said, well, to thank the voters for supporting you and electing you as Congressman.

He said yes.

The next morning, we shook hands, we thanked everyone, and then we went out to breakfast.

And he said, while it's true that I'm thankful for being elected to Congress, it's also true that today we started the campaign for my re-election offer.

Because running for office every two years means that you never stop running for office.

In Danbury, we have every two years 21 council members, the mayor, the city treasurer, the town clerk, six zoning members, three alternates, six board of ads, sometimes more if we have a vacancy, and three constables.

To beg people and to ask people to run for public office, as both parties have done, is maddening.

The cost of fundraising is maddening.

The cost of always campaigning is maddening.

And the public believes when is when are the elected officials doing their job?

Is running for re-election, raising money, and campaigning.

Constantly.

Half of the country has four-year terms for their municipal offices now.

There's leadership continuity and stability.

There's reduced campaign distraction.

And as I said, the prevalence is moving in the direction of four-year terms, not two-year terms.

We don't have a problem with accountability.

We have strengthen freedom of information laws.

We have cameras everywhere.

We hold public meetings everywhere.

Our elected officials are available, and we can hold them accountable under the laws that we have.

And so I would urge the Charter Revision Commission to move in the direction of a four-year term, not just for the mayor, but for all the municipal offices to the extent that we can.

Obviously, with Board of Education, it's a little bit different because we have some state statutes that we have to deal with.

And recognize that we need additional continuity and reduce madness of the constant campaigning and recruitment of candidates that we need to make.

And thank you for the opportunity to speak with you this evening.

Thank you, sir.

Any other members of the public wish to address the commission?

Councilman Henry.

Michael Henry, 11 Corn Towser Road Danbury.

I'd like to follow up on what Warren Levy said.

Touching on the fact of the amount of cities and towns in Connecticut that do have a four-year term is only 19 out of 169 cities and towns.

They've adopted that.

There hasn't been much movement on that since the process has been there for two or four.

I'm against the four-year term.

And I go on the basis of the constituents that and all these other cities and towns have only adopted or stayed with two-year terms versus the 19 and a half.

And also I'd like to, if I can something else.

Yeah.

Two and a half minutes left.

Okay, thank you.

And I'm looking at our boards, commissions, authorities, and societies that we have in the city of Danbury.

The process that we have to appoint individuals on those, I don't think it's a fair process.

I think we need to have a committee, a selection committee, a non-elected official committee.

Um someone that can view this and look at it.

All applications that come in, all for consideration, because I think there's some that are being lost in translation before they actually are validated.

We've got 14 commissions, we've got eight boards, we've got six authorities, we got one society.

We have approximately almost 300 positions that are up for appointment or out of term limit or can be pointed.

I think we need a formal process for that to show some transparency to the public and let them see what's available and post it so they can all see what they may seek out to a position that they want in the city.

Thank you.

I do have this if you want the committee to take a look at what we actually have.

Sure, yeah, I can distribute it, yeah.

You yeah, so you got something for them.

So they can see just how many positions there are.

Thank you.

Any other members of the public wish to address the commission?

Yes.

Go quickly.

My name is Jeff Harold.

I live on Foster Street.

Um very aerudite presentations.

Thank you very much.

Thank you for yours.

However, I I have some extreme concerns.

I I really wonder if the four-year terms is really gonna reduce my in mail box by anything.

Um as simple as that is, yeah, everybody's always running.

Um every time the mayor goes out, he's out, he's saying hello to people.

He's thinking he's still running for office, whether he's actually in the middle of a campaign or not, because you gotta build trust.

You gotta build, and that's what campaigning is is building trust in you and what the voters are voting for.

And so if I I just don't see any idea that having a four-year term is actually gonna reduce my inbox from politicians looking for this, that, or the other thing.

So for that, that I think is just a red herring.

And with only he said 19 uh cities in in Connecticut, but the reference was to across the country, I believe, that more are going to, wasn't that your reference?

That more across the country are going to that.

So I think to go to what we talked about last week, I think we need to really get a handle on the benefits, cost benefits of four-year terms, and put that in front of the commission and really take a look of uh, you know, support and non-support because there's so many different sides out there.

Um I I've been a supporter of four-year terms as long as I can remember, but right now I gotta realize that maybe I didn't really understand it.

Maybe there is more of a reason for two-year terms that I didn't see.

Um and I'm gonna guess I'm probably not the only voter in Danbury who might be feeling this way.

Um, so I think, and and we spoke a little bit last time about having a you know uh a positive and negative list on on both sides to have a better understanding.

Um and I don't have a prepared statement because I didn't think this was gonna come up first thing again.

I guess I probably should have planned on that, um, because we did talk about it.

Uh I also think that the idea of continuity and and all those aspects of security and cameras everywhere and all that.

I don't know if that's really transparency, because what happens in closed office doors or discussions being made in in party caucuses and stuff, and whether it's Democrat, Republican independent, socialist, communist, I don't care.

Um, there are still things that happen beyond the view of the public.

So it doesn't necessarily mean that four years are going to give us more transparency.

I just can't see that.

Uh and I'd like to see some evidence of where that shows that.

Um, I think the two-year terms allow the candidate to get out, shake hands, get a feeling for the voters every two years because things change in a year.

Things can change drastically around here, as they have over the last year.

So a voter, uh the mayor running this year is gonna hear different things from the voters than he heard a year and a half ago.

He is there, they're different concerns.

So I just think that that that some of that stuff is not necessarily clearly defined.

And I maybe I'm maybe I'm the only one that's too slow and I don't get it, but I don't I don't see that that's the case.

Um, every time a politician is out there and he has a message to say he's gonna send it social media.

So the the messages are gonna keep coming, and I want them to keep coming.

That is the kind of transparency because I know what they're thinking when I get that text message and email.

I don't think that's gonna go away just because we have four year terms.

I I don't think that's a good argument for four year terms, is what I guess I gotta say.

So okay, that's it.

I haven't used my whole time.

I yield it to somebody else.

Thank you.

We're actually 30 seconds over.

So 30 seconds.

In that case, thank you very much.

I owe you 30 seconds next week.

Uh thank you for that.

Uh any other members of the public to address the commission.

Any other members, any other members?

Seeing none, I will close public speaking.

Now move on to item number five, the minutes.

Uh so everybody should have a copy of the minutes from last meeting.

Um take a look if you haven't already.

Um, I I think they do a good job.

So thank you, uh, Secretary Almeida and Lisa for turning them around quickly, meeting weekly and getting the minutes in order is um a little more complicated task than it may seem.

I have no issues.

Anybody else have on the commission have any corrections or anything?

I had already previously submitted a typo edit, and that's what's in red on page two.

Okay.

All right, that being said, um, I will entertain a motion to approve the minutes as presented.

Motion's been made and seconded.

Any discussion on the minutes?

Any discussion, any discussion?

See none, I'll try your minds.

All those in favor of accepting the minutes as presented, say aye.

Aye, aye.

Any opposed, say nay.

Any abstentions, the minutes are accepted.

Okay, moving right along.

Uh so a game plan for tonight, um, and which will be the game plan for the commission as we move forward next couple months as we do the work.

We'll just go in order of the charter.

So tonight we're doing chapters one and two, which will cover um the incorporation and general powers in chapter one, and chapter two is elections and officers, which is why I invited uh the heads of our elected bodies um to be present with us tonight to discuss um as we get to that section in chapter two, and uh we have our council here to answer any questions.

So that being said, uh I figured we would make this more of like a workshop style for the commission.

So we'll go through the document that we should all have from our binders.

Um there's not a ton of text in chapters one and two, so we might be able to just go through each paragraph, get a consensus at the end of the day where we want to move forward, and then um just continue that way through the commission.

So with that being said, we'll start with chapter one, which is the incorporation and general powers.

Um so we got a breakdown from council last week on this section.

Um you know, I'll defer to appropriation and council if you want to maybe give a quick refresher on this section.

There's not a ton of operative text in this one.

So is there I should say this is a better question for you.

Uh, is there anything in this section that we have to have in there?

Because I mean one of them is incorporation, territorial limits, rights and obligations, if we can't touch any of that.

Those are standard green speech.

Anyone have any questions on these ones or or recommendations on chapter one?

I know this is probably gonna be our easiest chapter to go through.

I I had one potential suggestion, maybe we want to flag it's in the preamble where it says halfway down, probably in the bottom third, we believe in strong political leadership and a representative council and in the right of every citizen to be part of the decision making process.

Just because I I think it might be a decent idea just for thought to do the right of every citizen and resident to be part of the decision making process.

You know, we let residents speak at public speaking and they're part of the process, so that might be something to just add to the preamble.

It's not substantive, but I will I'll put it to the rest of the commission how how we might feel about that.

So it says the right of every citizen and resident to be part of the decision making process.

I would be in favor of that.

Yeah.

I agree.

I agree as well.

So we might have a consensus there to at least flag that for when we do the draft report in a few weeks.

So I will mark that.

And uh tonight, as we do the discussion, my idea is we'll talk about what we want to do, and then we'll get it off to corporation council, and they'll actually write the red line and the text in legal form that would make it appropriate for this document.

So we'll talk about what we want and then corporation council will work to get that actual text in there.

So everybody okay with that?

Yep.

All right, so now let's go on to chapter two, which is gonna be the meat and potatoes for tonight.

So elections and officers.

So I will just open the discussion.

So in the first Did you want to also focus on you had a change about section one-two about territorial limits?

Did I miss that?

Oh yes, no, you're correct.

Yep, that's just cleanup language.

So it would be between the city of it's just eliminating town and turning it into city because that might have just been left over from when we were a town.

So any objection to that?

No.

Okay.

So we'll flag that too for the draft.

All right.

And I think that might be it for chapter one.

Anything else in chapter one?

We're ready to move on to two.

Okay.

Um, all right.

So let's just start right at the top.

So this is the chapter about elections, term lengths, and uh minority representation, reapportionment, uh, vacancies, and the oath of office.

So there's not a ton of numbers of topics, but obviously these are some topics that are of great interest to the public.

So I'll just open up the discussion to the commission on the onset.

So for the elections.

Anybody want to start us off?

How we're feeling based on the two year or four-year term.

I think a four-year term for the size.

Um I've lived in Danbury my whole life.

I'm an independent, everybody knows that, so I I favor no party.

I'm you know, I work in Danbury now, I've been in Danbury for a long time.

But I look at the growth of our city over the years that I've lived here.

I'm 63.

So the changes that have happened in our city and the growth of our city.

I'd be interested to know, you know, of these 19 cities in the state of Connecticut.

I'm assuming they are a large population.

I mean, what are we now at 85,000, 89,000?

I'm guessing, compared to what we were, you know 60 years ago, 55 years ago.

So I just think for anything to get accomplished, you do need maybe a four-year term.

But I'm in agreement with limits.

Maybe it's two-year term.

That's still eight years.

You know, if we have these four-year terms, I mean, Mayor Baton would have been in office for what, 40 years.

So when you look at it realistically on that page, you know, it's I think I think federal government should have terms, you know.

So that's that's my opinion.

I think for the growth of our city, it would be beneficial in that respect, but I'd like to hear more on of these 19 cities.

Are they I'm assuming they're large cities, they're not towns and they're not the small, what we were, you know, 50 years ago.

Yeah, please, and you know, and and commissioner, thank you for that.

Um, I did ask corporation council to dig up the term lengths for some of our sister cities and towns in the area.

Um, maybe kind of help at least initiate the conversation.

So when these get passed out, we can take a look at the document.

Sorry, exactly.

Okay, I'm fixing that wasn't paying attention.

I didn't pass it.

Okay.

So did you get one?

No, I didn't.

Sorry, we have one.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Anyone else?

I think we have one.

Go ahead, sure.

Unfortunately, I have a commission meeting in two minutes.

I gotta go next door.

I'm one of the 14 commissioners.

And so, and for in just for the meetings moving forward, we're gonna just have the commissioners at the table.

It's no disrespect to anybody here because I appreciate you being here, but I just want to make sure we only have a certain amount of room at the table.

I want to make sure the commissioners get there.

Um, okay, so we've got the handout in front of us, and we have Norwalk, Hamden, West Hartford, Meriden, New Britain.

Um, these leg-sized communities, is that why this is.

What I did was I I tried to um, and there may be some omissions in here that should be in here and are not in here, but what we tried to do is try to focus on uh cities that are roughly the size, a little larger, a little uh smaller than Danbury, and you can see that the there's a split really uh Norwalk is a four-year term for the mayor, city council, town clerk, Hamden, four years for the mayor, two years for the legislative council, town clerk.

I'm not gonna read through all of these, but yeah, uh West Hartford.

Uh it's a town manager, uh Meriden.

It's a two-year term for the mayor, uh, and two-year term for the city council.

New Britain is two years.

Uh, and uh they have a 15-member council for two years.

Um I also I don't know if you have this, but uh before we went to press, I asked my office to to do uh also do uh uh waterbury, uh actually Waterbury and New Britain.

Uh I went through New Britain, Waterbury, the mayor's two years, town clerk two years, city clerk two years, etc.

Fairfield, uh four years for the first election, and four years for the board of selecting, and then mixed mixed uh back for the rest.

Middletown, four years for the mayor, four years for the county council.

It's basically four years across the board.

Uh New Haven, uh, four years beginning uh uh four years for the mayor, four years for the board of aldermen, uh four years for the city clerk.

Uh it's four years pretty much across the board.

So there may have there may be some, you know, Greenwich Westport, et cetera, that we didn't include here, but given the time constraints, I just wanted to give you an idea of the um the way in which different towns that are roughly our size uh go about this uh task.

Thank you, sir.

And I think also our neighbors towns and cities, Bethel just passed their four-year term in the previous election, so they're up to four years.

I think Ridgefield's also a four-year term.

Um I think you mentioned Waterbury being two, but Waterbury is now four years.

Four years four, though.

Yep, they changed a few election cycles back.

They're four years now.

So a lot of the ones that are similar in size appear to be at the four-year term level.

Um so we have that to go off of um as we keep the discussion going.

Um any other commissioners' questions or comments at this point.

Um agreements with the four-year term to the checks and balances with the common council and strong leaders and department heads that the council could have checks and balances that would help benefit the mayor at the time.

So that was my feeling towards it.

And I did invite uh some of the the electeds are here too, so they're gonna be part of this the discussion here.

But no, if there's no other comments at this point for the four years, we can defer to them, hear from them a little bit, and we can keep the discussion going.

So does anybody want to have any comments now before we get to the first time?

I just had looked this morning uh quickly on um some of the advantages of a four-year term.

And like uh Larry had said earlier, almost half of municipalities are now four years in the country, but some of the the bullets would be the four-year term can give greater experience and stability.

It has the allows the mayor to have a deeper knowledge of city operations, relationships with agencies, long-term planning.

It helps to make complex decisions such as but uh budgeting infrastructure projects and policy implementation.

It also reduces an administrative burden with fewer elections, there's less need to onboard new staff.

Um, it's more consistent with policy focus.

It wouldn't be changing uh potentially every two years.

It's unless we just heard a lot in alignment with larger city norms.

Many of the larger cities are adapting the four-year terms, and this is now seen as more effective for standard for uh experienced leadership, and um it also encourages quality candidates, so you're not necessarily finding uh candidates that are going to be short-term political opportunists, but rather people that are willing to commit to long-term service.

Thank you, Commissioner.

Um, from a historical perspective, um, I think a four-year term is is time for Danbury.

We've discussed this for many years, both sides of the aisle.

It's ironic how it flip-flops over the years.

Um, having having been involved in politics in Danbury for about 28 years now, 27 years.

And originally the Republicans were pushing for the four-year term, the Democrats were against it, and that was flip-flop.

Whether I was a part of the party, and now that I'm not in the party leadership, I still believe in a four-year term because I believe that um I was there day one when Mark Balton took over.

It took us five months to figure out how to turn the lights on.

You need a growing period for a mayor coming in.

Um takes a year to figure out the budget cycles, the department has and how to work for the city.

And as a city employee, the important part is to learn how the city runs.

You don't get that day one, day two, day five.

You know, we don't have the staffing that you know, larger um like the governor has where he has tons of staff that can teach them how to do these things.

You're elected second Tuesday, and 20 days later, you're the mayor.

There's not a lot of grace breaks to learn.

There's not a transition period.

But I think a four-year term allows a mayor to take a deep breath and not have to start campaigning again in six months because that's what it takes.

The cycles are getting shorter and shorter.

The day the mayor takes over, and I've been there for every single mayor since 01.

I can tell you I'm one of the only people in this room that can say that.

It's important to be I apologize.

I forgot who I no, no, I'm sorry.

I apologize.

I started when I was three.

I forgot you were in the room.

I I defer to Mary on on all of these, and I apologize.

I actually didn't realize you were there.

I am sorry.

Between Marion and Warren, I think I've served under eight mayors.

She's only yelled at me twice in my life, but that was the second time.

And I deserve both times.

But I actually I'm sorry.

Mike who?

Yeah.

No, no.

I twice in my life, I deserved both times, and I defer to you on that one.

Thank you.

Keeping me honest.

Um, but I really do believe we are we are there.

Um it's it in terms of the budget alone.

You put a budget in place, you you have to make ratifications, you have to make changes, and already you're running for re-election, so you're never gonna make the hard choices, in my opinion.

Having seen this happen over the years.

You know, we look at the you know, the last couple of mayors, their decision-making process changes when they know they gotta get re-elected in six months, eight months after the budget is done.

And I think the biggest part of this is to give them some breathing room to make long-term decisions, and I think you were right on a lot of your your key topics.

It is a longer-term decision process.

Richfield is a third of our size, they have a four-year.

Dan Carter just went to a four-year of the top seven uh uh cities in Connecticut, Bridgeport, Stanford, uh, New Haven, Artford, Waterbury, Nullock is now going in Danbury.

They're all four-year.

There's a reason why the larger cities are it's not Reading where you have 5,000 people and everybody just does it's easy on the fly.

We do need it, having been there for all many of those years, not all of them.

I do believe that it is gotta take that back.

And I I thank you for your time.

Thank you very much.

Commissioner, Mr.

Chairman.

I right, uh I see this role as the chief executive for the city of Danbury.

Um, and just like in any corporation, you wouldn't want transition at the chief executive level every two years.

You need consistency, you need strong leadership, it takes time to establish those things.

Um, in my mind, it's no different than right the equivalent of the governor for the state, the president level for for the country, right?

The mayor is the chief executive for the city, and you need to um I think we need to have a four-year term in order to allow for um a real strong leadership to develop, a team to be established, um uh norms and practices to be learned and understood, and and for a city our size, it's too much to ask um to continuously turn over and and and potentially have leadership changes every two years, which would create chaos, I think, in the city.

Um, we haven't had that, luckily, um, but it's very possible, and I think we need to um follow the norms that are happening across the country and certainly follow um what we're seeing happening in other large cities across our state.

Um, and so therefore I am in favor of a four-year champion.

Thank you very much.

Um, having said that, I do believe that 21 is the proper amount for the council, and um are we offering comment on the other sections or are we just the election?

Yeah, we're gonna get we're gonna get a lot of.

And I do below them at some point.

As we work through starting off on the election, yeah, okay.

I agree.

Four-year term for the mayor.

Um possibility of term limits, not quite sure, but three terms, four terms.

Um the expense of an election every two years.

Ask Mary Ann what the um money the city spends on an election every two years.

So actually, you know, to if you if you if you don't mind, Commissioner, it and I invited the registrar's for that reason.

Do you want to share ballpark the estimate for a municipal general election?

Elections have increased dramatically in the last two years when the General Assembly passed early voting in uh no offense far leave, but no funding for it.

Uh so they threw that cost onto the municipalities, and not only did we go from one location, Danbury now has to fund two locations, which is each location is about 15 to 20,000 dollars.

So it that's just for early voting.

And the second location is kind of a waste because you get six, ten people, but we still have to fund it as if you're getting a hundred and fifty.

So, yes, we do have a lot of additional cost.

Um they're gonna escalate again this year, may drop early voting.

It's gonna throw a burden on the poor town clerk's office with no full absentees.

Um the cost is everyone knows stamps off sky high.

And if everybody's gonna be voting absentee, which a lot of them will do because it's the first year for you, they'll take some of the burden off our office and add it to their office, which is fine with me.

You know, it's going to pass the buck.

You know, I have a sign of my thing.

You know, the buck doesn't stop here, passes through the window.

Um, but yeah, it it's it's a cost.

I mean, I've always been on both sides of the four-year issue, as Mike said years ago, they tried to pass it through.

Um then the people rejected it.

They didn't want it, you know, it was politics.

And I don't think politics should come into this.

Same what's happening now.

It's the politics.

They did try to pass this, and I'm dating myself.

I think I was two years old.

Um, when Gino Arcani was mayor, he tried to push through a four-year term way back then.

And the vote is rejected in the when it went to the ballot.

So it has been tried and been rejected by the voters.

Is it time to do it again?

Yeah.

My suggestion, and it's just my suggestion, is to stack other terms.

If you want some continuity, we have 21 on the council.

Let's do like we do with the Board of Education.

Let's run 11 one year, 10 another year.

They start off with a four-year term, the others have two-year term, but then they become a four-year term.

You'll have continuity.

You won't have 21 brand new council people.

We should do the same thing with the zoning commission.

Stagger some of the terms, so you have some continuity instead of all brand new people.

Um couple years ago, the whole council for the most part changed with that.

So just appreciate the comments, Madam Registrar.

Yeah.

But um to your point of the the staggered, isn't that in a way defeating the purpose of the cost savings that would be on the four-year elections?

Yes.

Um, it'll be less costly because the ballots of stuff will be cheaper.

It'll still be costly.

No question about, but democracy is costly.

That's what I tell people.

We have primaries, costly.

Um but democracy costs money.

It pays, uh, it's comes at a price.

But I think for the city's welfare, and I always said that way back when that continuity is important.

You know, you put 21 brand new council people on there, they're sitting there sucking their thumb.

If you have 11 or you have a few people that have some experience, you got some continuity, you got some experience.

You don't need everybody to be ushered out.

Same thing Ted probably knows on zoning.

If you got all new people, you got a problem.

That's what I'm gonna say tonight.

All right, so to that point, thank you, Mr.

I appreciate that.

Uh and so I did invite the the heads of the electeds to talk about because uh we yes, we have the mayor's term, but the mayor's term is also one of several other elected bodies for the city.

So I think since you you know your name brought brought up, we have the chair of the zoning commission, Mr.

Haddad.

If you want to maybe take a minister, so to speak on your chair.

Gino Arcanti, is that what you're talking about?

Gino Arcanti.

Yes, yes, yes.

I was two.

I was for it.

All right, all right, all right.

Let's keep let's let's keep it on point.

Uh can I can I ask regarding uh uh a term length very you talk about just elected or also mayor appointed?

Uh 12 just elected.

Okay.

The neural appointed is a term limit.

Yeah, yeah, like that's but I meant length.

Boards and commissions are term limited.

Not not limited, the length of the term.

So in other words, a mayor on on when I was I I was appointed by the mayor, and I was also on an elected term for that.

A set term of years.

Yes, okay.

For boards and commissions.

Boards and commissions.

Okay.

Um, I was gonna say that um I'd like to.

Um I'm here invited as the zoning chairman, so I'd like to speak only to zoning because I don't get involved.

A lot of you know I don't get involved in politics at all.

I like land and its law and its regulation.

Um I think four years, I've been talking about that since probably before you were born, Mr.

Chairman.

Uh, for a lot of reasons.

I I've been in 23 elections.

I've won 23 elections.

That would have saved us a lot of aggravation myself.

Um, so I've served under eight, eight different mayors.

Um, we've all talked about it uh under every mayor.

Um four years would do a lot for our the zoning commission.

Uh when we win the election, uh, we immediately schedule corporation council to come in and give a training seminar, usually about a month, six weeks after.

Um it almost seems like it's a short period of time after that we're running for election again.

Um so training for a commission member that would last four years with uh maybe another incidental training session two years after that holds a lot of weight.

It's uh to be frank, um, a commission, a brand new commission member that would sit through attorney Casagrani's training program.

You need to be on a commission a little bit to understand what he's saying, and then it all fits in the piece five or six months later.

If it was a four-year term, it's much more effective.

The other thing is to try and get candidates, it's a lot easier to get candidates that can sit and not have to run every two years.

You can go to somebody that's more qualified and say you could be here for four years, you don't have to run every two years.

Uh you can find a home here and um and learn and grasp um if you like it, run again and stay.

If you don't, you don't have to.

Um, but I've I've always liked the four-year term.

I think it has a lot of value to the to the commission uh from a zoning regulation standpoint.

It'd be great to not have to see all of the signs all over the place every three years because we have a lot of sign regulations, but that goes out the window on the uh politicians' first amendment rights.

So uh we have to put up with it.

So not much I can do there, sorry.

But I'm my my opinion would be it would be great for the zoning commission if it was a four-year term.

You have the president of the council here, Mr.

Business, if you care to maybe opine on the question.

Sure.

Uh in terms of in terms of terms.

Um I once was on the Treasury Emission Commission in 2007, and this very topic was debated uh at some length and a lot of detail in greater length and detail that was presented by various people opined on it.

Uh the commission in the end voted in favor of the four-year term.

Uh anything you do has to go to the city council, and and the council has to approve it.

That's not that didn't happen uh with the 2000-2008 commission, but the commission did vote for that uh in favor of the four-year term.

Um personally, um it took a long time for me to get to to a point, uh, but but the four-year term makes sense on on many different levels, uh, principally uh for continuity.

The big issue that people have uh bantered about is transparency.

I'm gonna use a different word, an informed voter, an informed resident.

And and and it's hard now in today's in today's climate of information and the lack of a newspaper that we all read uh to get accurate information about local government.

You might get stuff posted here and there on social media, most of it wrong.

Uh, but but there's it's really hard for people to get information, and that's going to be hard whether it's a two-year term or a four-year term.

Uh if we're gonna go to a four-year term, um, contrary to some other opinions, I think that everybody has to be on the four-year term, including members of the council, because the people who are not on that same term rotation, no one's gonna come out and vote for them.

It'll be a really small and a lack of attended uh election for for for those people, and and uh which wouldn't really be fair to them.

I think that the council would benefit the council members and the council as a whole, and also then the city uh from council people who have a long, detailed, knowledgeable experience for a longer term.

Uh that would greatly benefit benefit uh this the council members, the city as well.

And and that's really about the size of it from from my from my vantage point.

Um I am I might be the president of the council, but in reality, thank God, under this instrument, I'm no better than any other any of my 20 colleagues on the council.

We all are equal in terms of our votes and our opinions.

So I can't speak for everybody.

I'm speaking for myself.

I just want you to realize that.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr.

President.

Um Madam Clerk, you would like to open on the two verses of four years, because you are also an elector.

Um okay, so I would like to speak on behalf of the town clerk's office or the town clerk's staff.

Uh now that I've been here just a couple of minutes.

I'm kind of new to the whole political realm, the town clerk's office, and um I find it to be people don't know what goes on in the town clerk's office.

They don't know the immense amount of responsibilities that are going on in there, and I know people sometimes make jokes.

I'm gonna throw it out there, Mr.

Jen.

They was it uh was the thing.

They hatch them, uh match them and dispatch them.

So it's cute, but that's not all that's going on in there.

And like Mary Ann said, there's all the stuff having to do with elections, and if you'd indulge me just for a moment, you don't mind, I got a minute, right?

All right, because I came a little bit prepared.

This I actually have something from the state, but we'll just keep that aside because we get up yourself.

We have land records, we have uh certified copies of public records, we have indexes and records and uh municipal land records, surveys, maps, uh meetings, agendas, uh because I can't say it off off my head.

Uh tax assessor information, we have uh tax liens, we do for the tax collector, property transfers, we have vital records, which has each and every single one of those has statutes that you have to learn and be able to protect the birth certificates, the death certificates.

There's all kinds of things for each and every single one of those.

There's licensing things and permits issued and other, let's see, notaries and trade names and appointments and vacancies and resignations and oaths and justice is the peace listings and uh marshals submissions and tax distributions and uh veteran discharges anyway.

There's a lot.

So for me to come in as a beginner, these people who work here as a career have to teach the town clerk what to do, and I think that it is disrespectful and very disruptive to the office to do it every two years.

Um I think in order to learn the job, you need more than two years to do it, and maybe more than that, and maybe more than four, I don't know, but four seems pretty right if we're gonna do terms because again the camaraderie with the staff, which I believe I have already, but if I get out of here, then they're gonna start all over again.

And that clerk is not gonna know.

I mean, I've learned a lot in a couple of years, but you heard what I have to learn.

There's a lot to know.

Next person's gonna have to start all over again.

Most overworked office in city hall.

I can attest to that.

Right.

Watch all the people going in all day long.

There's a lot to be said.

You can ask me another time.

But if we're some pop or not, oh, and then there's the absentee ballots that are oh, I wanted to say this about the the money having to do with the um the elections.

Is that so the state has changed some things also having to do with the notices, which costs a lot of money.

Every time there's any election, primary or others, we have to put notices into the newspaper, and now we have to put them also in Spanish.

And there's a whole bunch of things going on with that, which is another story, but um, it's very, very costly.

So, you know, uh two years.

There's that.

There's a lot more to uh to unpack there.

But if it's gonna be two years or four years, I think four years is way more appropriate in that office.

Absolutely.

Much macle.

Thank you.

Um Mr.

Jowdy, you are also the city treasurer, so I'll let you put that hat on for Laurie.

It took her six months to learn the job.

So to speak, to run to work.

And six months after that, she's trying to get re-elected again to see the job.

So I think first of all, the job should be four years.

And we're not talking about the town clerk, but I will say this.

We should consider the appointment of town clerk as an elected.

And I think that because we didn't mark that topic for discussion further down the line, but I think that one's probably best appropriate when we get to the uh like the department heads and the agencies, and then we have HR here too.

But we do have that flag for discussion.

All right.

Um, the board of ed has a meeting tonight, so the chairperson could not make it, but they already have four-year terms.

So uh Mr.

Mayor, you are the other elected position.

That's not for tonight.

If you want to thank you, Mr.

Chair.

I've um I spoke at the public hearing portion of this and upined on many issues, primarily this one.

So everybody I think recalls my thoughts and the the um the request to get it in front of the voters um so they can have their say.

This this commission is in the end, I'll be all on that one, but you are the opportunity to put it in front of the voters.

Um, so I will be respectful of everybody's time, Mr.

Chair.

Um, but I can't answer any questions on that topic if anybody would like, or I'll yield to my chief of staff if I think that, but we're okay.

Thank you, Mr.

Mayor.

Uh, any commissioners have any questions for any of the electeds that are here for us, or does or for the chief of staff on this topic?

They did a pretty good job breaking that down for us.

I'll give them some kudos for that.

Oh, okay.

So that being said, we're not gonna do any motions or anything because you still have to do the draft report that'll come at the end of this process.

But I think for this part, as we've been doing in the first two things, we want to do a consensus of the group.

Um, is there a consensus for the four years for the all of the elected offices?

We'll just go around the table here.

I'm in I'm in favor of the four years across the board.

So for our consensus here.

Is anybody's just go around this?

We'll we'll start with it.

I'm in favor.

I'm in favor.

I'm in favor also.

Um I've I'm I'm probably too, but this document is silent when it talks about ethics.

And I think that back in the in when this was generated, we probably didn't think a lot about uh ethical reasoning uh two or four.

And since this document is silent, things shouldn't be done uh because they're all related and connected.

Uh and um and some of the issues that I heard phrase is because people say, Oh, you can have you can be accountable and that kind of thing.

You can be accountable if you have a strong ethical uh structure.

And this document is pretty much silent on that.

It says in the preamble uh ethics without any definition or um uh any clarity of what that means, what it means to you, what it means to me, but it means to everybody is probably different.

And since this uh since this is silent, I I think that if you connect them, then four years would be fine because you have a strong ethical piece that will do what a lot of people said that they were reluctant to do with it with adding a four-year term.

So like I said, I think you have to look at it as it connects to all the pieces, and since this is document, I I think pretty silent on that.

Um I feel that uh four-year term is fine, as long as we uh understand that we're gonna have a structure that's gonna be different, it's gonna be held holding people accountable, and able to document that accountability.

Thank you, Commissioner.

Um, and the good news is we do have an ethics ordinance that speaks to a lot of that, and at our last meeting we did flag that we were gonna look at the ethics language that's at the end of the document.

So we'll we'll get to the meat of that later on in the charter revision process.

But we do have an ethics ordinance, which is the ethics uh commission, and and we have uh the language in the charter that we'll get to, but your point is well taken, Commissioner.

So we'll keep going down the line.

Four years, I agree.

I agree with four years also, especially after hearing number of these opinions.

I agree for you.

So we have a uh unanimous consensus amongst the group to move forward um for the four years for the elected offices across the board.

So thank you all very much for that discussion.

Uh moving through the document.

Um under letter D, it talks about a city clerk.

I'd like to remove that there's no more city clerk, or there's a level from the previous uh struggle chain.

Any objection to that?

Since we have the legislative assistance now, that's the legislative assistance now.

That position literally doesn't exist anymore.

So any objection to that cleanup.

Okay.

All right.

Um moving forward.

I just have a sorry, but um a question on section C.

There's very detailed um timeline for the Board of Ed elections.

Was that due to the timing of the last charter?

And is that language still hold true, or can that be cleaned up because it's so relevant?

For the Board of Ed, because they are already staggered, um, to go forward with the will of this commission, we're going to have to unstagger them.

So what will probably end up happening, and we'll have to work out language with corporation council is we'll have to elect the members that are up in 27, and then elect members in 29.

And have all 11 up in 31.

So they'll have to we'll have to put some cleanup language there to get everybody on the four-year term.

Statute silence, I think to the board, which we would have to look at.

So yeah, it's so yeah.

So we'll go to corp council and we'll get an answer on that clearly, because I know there's also new legislation that just got passed that that's wrestling allows municipalities to do the four-year elections.

Now it used to say you have to have biannually, now it says or quadrannually, depending on what your charter or local rules say.

So we'll go to we'll go to court court council and then we'll get an answer for the board of ed.

But uh the board of ed is gonna be uh a little bit complex to make it work to what we want to do, but we will make it work because that's what lawyers do.

Right, Dan?

Right.

Okay.

All right, so I also have one other clarifying question.

Um, in some of these elected positions at Clearly States who shall be electors of the city, but not in all.

And so I'm wondering, I know that further along somewhere it says that I can't remember where it is, but somewhere it says that all elected officials shall be under eligibility.

Yeah, yep.

Right.

So I don't know if there's why there's inconsistency in the descriptions and the language, but section.

So for example, in H under the zoning, right?

Three, who shall be electors of the city, but under the town clerk, for example, it does not say who should be electors of the city, right?

Not not all of the elected positions have that stipulation.

Understood.

So there's just inconsistency.

But it should be caught under the catch-all of eligibility under section 2.7, so it might not be necessary.

Yeah, I'll defer it to Dan on that one too.

I got you does 2 7 take care of that.

Do we have to clean that up?

I mean, it's been like that already.

Does specifically say no person shall be eligible for a bunch of the BC office who is not at the time of his election and elector of the city?

But that doesn't mean that your point is well taken that there should be consistency in the prior language, right?

Thank you.

Thank you, Commissioner.

I think we could move on to uh section two dash three.

I know it had come up for discussion.

Um, if anybody has any comments on the minority representation section, we should have to go back to G with no indifference to you.

Um because the town clerk's position is getting so complicated, as you stated, with land records, vital records, you know, uh property transfers and so forth.

I'm wondering if as we did with the city clerk to make it a department head position, like we do with the city clerk, maybe the town clerk is something we should look at also it is turning into more of a professional department like the tax collector, the finance director, you know, something along those lines, and with uh a person transitioning, um, there is such a you know um uh uh a mountain of of learning needed that it may be time for it to make it a department head like the the city clerk was um something just to discuss because it is becoming you know more of a complex position, and and no disrespect you know, but I think it's getting there.

You know, I look at um the previous town clerk who did an amazing job.

Um she left because she needed a more stability in her position.

Um, and I think it's something we should look at as a as a town or city that's getting much much more bigger.

We can so we can do one or two things tonight, and I'll defer to my fellowship.

Yeah, so we can we can talk about because it did come up uh several times at the public hearing to know about this body about the town clerk position, whether it should still be elected or appointed.

Um we can discuss that tonight too.

We can flag it um and get back to it when we get to the department head section when we have HR here too, which might be able to maybe shed some light on the process that could be theoretically involved in that um sort of change, but um we have any reference.

Do we want to talk about it tonight or do we want to flag it and get to it when we get to the rest of the department?

Flag it until we get to that section.

Okay, I just think it might be better to have the HR people in the room too.

And when it does come up, it would be helpful to know what the counterargument is.

Sure.

Yep, absolutely.

Gives us a chance to do a little bit more homework on it too.

But point is well taken commissioning.

Thank you for that.

Okay.

Um does anybody have any comments on the minority representation section?

I figured we'll just go in order of the document.

I think minority representation is always important.

Yeah.

On any board or anything.

I think it works.

I think it's a purpose for it, and I think we should keep it.

I'm in concurrence on that one as well.

Anyone else for that one?

Okay, we'll keep going.

All right, reapportionment.

Um Mr.

Sefranik, why don't you tell us a story?

Okay, having served as chairman for two reapportionment commissions, and I can claim that I am the only one that does that, Mary and I do hold that.

So if you would have to come up with the case, it's the only one I can claim.

Um, and having advised on the one in 0203 when Warren was the chairman of that one.

Um it doesn't work the way it's situated, and the situation is this.

Um the intention is very well done, but the the minority leader points to the majority leader points to, and then the four people try to come together to create a fifth person, as we know.

Um and the problem is that it has to be a majority, I'm sorry, all four have to have to agree on a fifth person.

That's impossible nowadays.

We've come very close several times, but never happens.

So the commission never gets to establish itself as a five-person commission.

Um I would recommend a couple changes.

Do I you want change recommendations or just you're you've been on it?

So I'm gonna roll.

Yeah, okay.

So one of the recommendations I would make is first step is, and I think it's important for the reapportion commission to try to create the fifth person.

But what I would like to see is the threshold drop to a simple majority as opposed to a unanimous.

Um last time we had three to one, which was close, but we needed unanimous, so we couldn't get the fifth person.

If in fact the commission, and this is the next step, cannot come up with the fifth person, three to one, then it goes to either the mayor of the council, and I haven't figured out where we should go with there, but there has to be another body that says nope, you guys can't come up with it, we're gonna do it for you.

Maybe the mayor appoints ratified by the council, something like that.

Reapportion is too important not to be able to have a commission that can function.

And like I said, I was chairman for two of those, and it was it was a mess.

And and you know, Duane will tell you.

And if Ben Chenis is here, he'll tell you for about 20 minutes about how it was.

He's still telling me how it was.

Um, and it's something important.

And I think that's something that we need to fix.

And I think my suggestion is uh a good start, they get a three to one majority only, and then work with it from there as the next step, but there has to be a next step.

The commission uh the the charter doesn't talk about if you can't come up with anything, what happens then?

I think we need to put something in there.

Thank you.

Thank you, sir.

Any other comments by uh the commission on this topic?

Or questions for Mr.

Sefranik since he was there?

Do you think the membership of the commission should be increased to maybe nine, so you can have three.

Um nine is gonna make it way too complicated.

And I'll tell you why.

Because when you start pulling up maps and you start moving uh census blocks around, it's it's a mess.

You know, to get two people in the same party to figure it out as stuff.

And you know, the job of the commission is or the uh the reapportionment is to present something to the council.

So with nine people moving it around too much, I don't think you'll ever get a consensus with nine.

I that's just my personal opinion.

Even the state, if I'm not mistaken, I think the state is four and four, and that's for the entire state or four and four, and then you know the ninth person is uh combination, but even that that's an entire state with only nine.

So that bring it to that level for us, I think it's too much personally, Mr.

Cascrani.

Mr.

Chairman, I I would suggest that the commission also take a look at language in section two-four, which is the reapportionment section.

Uh Mike will recall that the last time, and Ben and Duane will recall the last time uh we we uh got into a little bit of a snafu about the language that said that the reapportionment uh uh uh uh commission shall prepare a plan to alter the boundaries of the various wards to make all wards substantially equal in population consistent with federal constitutional standards.

That's the equal protection clause of the United States Constitution.

However, we also have the voting rights act, or at least as a couple of weeks ago, we had the voting rights act, and um what that means is is that the voting rights act, uh at least as it was originally constituted in 1965, said that no uh reapportion plan shall operate to um make it more difficult for people of color to uh have districts that enable them to elect uh people of their choice.

This this language, and it was brought up during that that um debate last year, doesn't refer to the voting rights act.

So what I would suggest that you consider is to say to make all wards substantially equal in population, consistent with federal constitutional standards and uh and in compliance with applicable all other applicable federal laws, whatever they may be.

Any objection to that from the commission?

I I don't know if we should go that far or not because the law can change so dramatically from time to time that constitutional if it because if it doesn't pass constitutional mustard, it won't pass anyway.

But let's say a law is changing from the beginning to the end, then what do we do?

Like in this in this case last year, or when we did this, the law was changing.

So when we start the process, it takes you know a few months.

If anything changes, then it has to change also.

But look, can I just comment on that?

Yeah, yeah.

The point of my language is is to say that the plan has to be in compliance with all then applicable federal laws.

Oh, you said then the whole time?

I apologize.

Well, maybe I didn't say then.

Okay.

But all applicable federal laws, meaning that whatever the law is at that time.

Well not state laws too.

How far do we go with it?

Well, federal laws voting rights act.

Supercedes.

Yeah.

So that that's you don't need to change the charter every time the Supreme Court changes its mind.

Okay.

Okay.

I mean we should go to that.

I don't want it to be too inclusive.

I think I thought constitutional was enough, but if if you think we should go further.

I think so.

Okay.

Any other comments on that?

That piece from council that we just there was one recommendation that came at the public hearing from the mayor's office in the last section.

Um are we?

Where it we're still in reapportionment.

Oh, but it's the section where it says if the reapportionment advisory commission fails to submit a plan by September 30th, um, they had recommended language that if for whatever reason a plan does not get submitted uh to the city council by that date, the council by a majority vote will appoint a firm or an expert in reapportionment to work with the city council to develop a plan for the city council to approve.

I think that I mean that's what ended up happening really.

So I I think that point was that suggestion was well taken.

I'm open to comment from the commissioners on that one if we want to include that as well.

Can you explain it again?

I'm sorry.

Yeah, yeah.

I got lost on that.

So this is so when the reapportionment advisory commission meets and they're doing their plan, if for whatever reason that commission can't create a plan, say they're deadlocked or each commissioner has their own plan and nobody wants to vote for the fifth person, that won't happen anymore.

Well, you could you could still have somebody that doesn't be three to two.

You're assuming that all someone might have stayed somebody, right?

You know what I mean?

It's a it's a it's a contingency.

It's about saying you'll have to fail safe.

So if for whatever reason that happens, then uh the city council will appoint a professional, an independent professional to do the math themselves in consultation with the city council, because they're gonna vote on the full thing anyway.

So I thought that was a good suggestion.

The problem we ran into last time is they the city council did appoint a professional who won up charging a tremendous amount of money, if I'm not mistaken, and I think he was wrong in some of his assumptions.

Um those who were there, I please jump in.

Um so by by mandating a professional to be appointed, we spent a tremendous amount of money.

He was wrong, and we got to go back and do it again.

Marianne, isn't that right?

More or less?

They they appointed a professional who cost a lot of money and was wrong, and then you gotta clean it up.

Yeah, he was he just did a for hotel.

So like my question is I I don't think we should mandate to perform the to hire a professional.

Yeah, he was.

I think that's a wrong.

I mean, I'm just yeah, no, I hear your point.

I do.

I hear I hear your point, but I think the way the language was presented that they would work in consultation with the city council.

So the city council would be involved in it.

Okay, I mean it's the council.

I mean, I agree with Mary Ann.

The um demographer that we hired was misinformed from the beginning as to which maps were wrong data points, too.

It was wrong in so many respects.

And it it was it was uh in the confines of this public forum, which is privileged, it was a negligent job.

Uh so I do think the the spirit of the suggested language is um is commendable.

The the only the only reason I I hesitate to say you you might want to say Mike uh a uh professional cult consultant or other person.

Perfect.

Okay, but I don't want to be locked in with the colour.

How do we know that other person is qualified?

That'll be that'll be their job, that'll be the council's job.

Right.

I mean, heck, I could be qualified for enough lecture.

I mean it worked in oh it worked with Mr.

Levy in 03 and uh oh and 13 worked, you know.

So this was this this was in one big mess.

And maybe this was the pie and the uh pizza.

Gotta don't understand.

That's what it was.

We all remember the pie.

Is this where the semantics too might be helpful in instead of shall it could be May, and therefore the council is not required.

Well, if you put May, then they don't have to do anything, and we're at the stalemate.

Okay.

Can I ask a question of you?

Um one of my big things you for years and years is and we talked about is legislative intent.

Is there a way to put a legislative intent or some sort or intent of so that in five years from now there's not gonna be a legal mess to say this is what they meant, this is what they didn't mean.

Is there a way to the intent was to do this?

Is that possible, or is that just uh not uh not a way to go about it?

The statutes often include statements what the legislative intent of this ordinance is although if you can craft the language to be exactly what the legislative intent is, then the legislative intent language becomes superfluous.

Sure.

Right.

But having said that, there is there are many instances in federal and state and local laws where it's the provision will say the intent of this section is to do XY just in case in in five years from now, you know, there's gonna be a major debate.

What do they mean?

Well, is that possible to craft later?

Or or the way it just be sure it's right.

Depending on the language providing it, yeah.

Okay, thank you.

So for that one, how about is so let's just do the the consensus for this section since that's the last part of reapportionment.

Um I just to be fair to everybody.

If we just do the commissioner to appreciate that, sir, thank you.

Thank you.

Um so for the reapportionment section, this is what we talked about so far, and then and we can do a consensus.

Um so we have the line recommended by council in that first part, federal constitutional standards and in compliance with all other applicable lawyers, something to that effect.

That's that catch all language, then it's not only the constitutional standards.

And then we have the suggestion by Commissioner Sefranik that for if the four members so appointed cannot uh cannot designate that fifth member.

Um the threat we should lower the threshold so that instead of unanimous we do three fourths, which is three out of the four commissioners.

So the majority.

Yeah, three fourths.

Yeah, or we'll just we can drop it down since there's four, we can say um something to the effect of three of the four members must agree or something like that.

But are we okay generally that the consensus to for appointment of the fifth person is three out of the four instead of a unanimous vote?

Or you can make it such that if there you can't reach a kit what is the language saying so, like we could do so.

It says like if the four members fail, the fifth member shall be a uh no, it says it must be unanimous.

So we could do language that it's three fourths, and then if they don't see it's the very last sentence of the last graph.

The four members so designated shall within 30 days unanimously select the fifth member.

The four members, yeah, yep, exactly.

The four members are designated shall within 30 days unanimously select the fifth member.

So we could scratch that and say you could say three to four members.

Well, three or four members that that constitutes a majority.

Yeah, so a majority of the membership shall unanimous that shall select the fifth person, and then if we want to have some further um indemnification, so to speak, we could say absent of being able to find a fifth member, then the reverse within 30 days.

The mayor shall appoint with the council's consent.

So are we okay with that procedure?

So it's three out of four.

If they can't get three out of four, then the mayor appoints and the council confirms.

Give it a 30-day period.

That way we'll drag it on.

Yep.

And then the mayor appoints with simple majority of the council approval, like they do department heads or anything else.

Oh no, the department.

I'm okay.

I'm okay with that.

Anyone else?

Yeah, does that make sense?

Consensus on that one.

So can I just ask for clarification on the sentence immediately preceding that?

Um in the instance that there's an unaffiliated members of the council.

So it says the majority leader and the minority leader appoints each two of these.

Right.

But if there are members who are not a member of the majority political party, right, they shall select one of their number, which persons shall designate two members of the commission in lieu of the designation by the minority leader.

I just don't just don't understand the legal junk in and I'm looking for clarification on what you can explain a situation in which that would be relevant.

So let's say there's one Republican and two um unaffiliates on the council, or that's what they want to.

There is no clear majority leader or minority leader because it's two on affiliates and a republican, or vice versa.

And so the five members would be not we're five members of the next step.

It's two and two.

Minority leader appoints two, the majority leader appoints two.

But if let's say you have to create a minority leader by having three people vote or unanimous, there's one and one, then it's not unanimous, and you can't have a minority leader in that sense.

I assume that's what it means.

I think it's with if Dr.

I think it's with if there is an unaffiliated or even an independent member of the council.

That changes the dynamics of the what does that mean?

And that is true minority members.

If there's minority representation, or let's say there's three independents and one minority party, the Republican or Democrat.

Then the independent is the um can appoint a Republican or Democrat depending.

They're the minority party.

So doesn't that get you five?

No, the fifth is created by the two and two.

The two and two meetings defining the four, right?

It's defining the four that's to make the fifth.

Correct.

I can take a look at that.

Very cumbersome.

But I think it's I think it's trying to allude to the fact that if it's we've always assumed that over the years it'll be, you know, you know, nine 18 Republicans, three Democrats, or vice versa, and there will always be a party affiliation attached to it.

As opposed to an unaffiliated, and uh about the last section appointing the um consultant or other qualified person.

Are we okay with that language too?

And we'll have Dan will draft something and get back to us too.

So we'll take a look at we're not confirming committing to anything in writing tonight as far as language.

What I'd like to say is like what the so the council shall by what by supermajority, majority, simple majority, what shall they uh decide on the person?

Whether standard majority, I would say majority.

Yeah, that's fine.

But I think we should put that in there to say because you know, maybe you go fight over that, you know.

Right.

One side has this person, those or does that person who need to decide?

Which is which it says shall by majority.

Oh, I apologize.

I didn't I I'm sorry.

It's different from majority vote of the entire council.

Well, that's true.

Right.

Yeah, that's I didn't realize it actually clarified that and specifically said that's what I was worried about.

Okay, so are we okay on reapportionment?

Any other comments before we move on?

Okay.

Um I personally don't think we have to do anything with tide elections.

If anybody has an objection, we can keep going on that one.

Okay.

Um vacancies.

We have some pretty clear language there already.

I have a question.

Yeah, go ahead, sir.

Okay, so it says you must go within 60 days.

Okay, suppose you don't, then what?

So I was gonna say my recommendation, yeah.

My a lot of towns have a catch-all there too.

I would just take the general language we have for other vacancies, appointment by the mayor.

Right by the council, yeah.

Can't do it.

Sure.

But there has to be something that says, okay, you're 61 days now.

What?

Yep, I agree there.

Okay.

Any objection to getting that language remove or adding it, adding a catch-all that says if the council can't fill the vacancy within 60 days, the mayor would then appoint council members.

No later than 15 days after the expiration.

I know the state of Connecticut can't fulfill anything.

We could speak from more state.

So okay.

No one intended for elected officials.

It's a fact.

And I guess this is a this is a question for the commission, just as we move forward for everything.

Do we have a consensus for the uh the gender neutral language stuff?

We see a he or a she changing it to there.

Yes, okay.

So just as we go through the document, whenever we see one, we'll flag it.

Okay.

So he she now equals the there.

Yes.

Um I don't personally have anything for eligibility.

I think that's pretty straightforward.

You have to be an elector to eligible to run for office.

And town clerk, we flagged we're gonna punt to when we get to the department heads and have HR here to talk about that position.

And then uh that leaves us to the oath of office, which anybody has any strong objections to how it's written.

I think it's good personally.

So I'll open it up to the room.

So it's isn't there I thought there was some case law about the the use of the words of help from the country.

Some towns have language that is a little bit more um theologically neutral, if that's the right way to put it.

Sure.

Um I I could take it, I couldn't.

Could you help us with that and take a look if we appreciate that?

All right, so we'll flag that or when we get to the or such higher power is just okay.

So that's the end of chapter two.

So we we went through a lot.

Uh open it back up to the commission if anybody has any questions or comments about anything we've done tonight.

This is just we're sending our intent to the the lawyers to get us some language, and then we'll take a look at the red lines um as we go.

But we did on this section.

So anybody have any questions or things they want to go back to?

Okay.

All right.

So Mr.

Chairman, the goal would be for before the next meeting for me to come up with red line language that uh appears to track what I believe to be the consensus reached tonight.

Yep.

So that they can uh we don't have to vote on that separately, but to build the draft report as we go.

So that way we can stay on our time.

Yeah for that.

All right.

Um so that takes care of our business set the red line business section for tonight.

Um I'll move on to Chairman's report.

I don't have anything additional of substance to report.

Um just keep on overcommunicating if uh you feel like you're gonna be late or not here.

Uh everybody's been great so far, so I appreciate that.

Um so that'll be it for the chairman's report.

Other business, any comments or anything from the commission for the good of the order.

Okay.

Um I want to thank all of our electeds that came out tonight, members of the public as well.

Um I thought this was a very, very good workshop session.

Um we discussed a lot of good things, and we are moving along.

So that being said, uh I want to take a motion to adjourn.

So motions are made, is there a second?

The main second, any discussion.

All right, all those in favor signify by saying aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Any opposed, abstentions?

Motion carries.

We are adjourned at 7 54.

Thank you all very much.