Legislative Rules Committee Discusses Repeal of Appointments Commission – March 24, 2026
Legislative Rules Committee Discusses Repeal of Appointments Commission – March 24, 2026
The Legislative Rules Committee of the Stamford Board of Representatives met on March 24, 2026, at 6:03 PM to consider LR 32.016, an ordinance to repeal the Appointments Commission (Article 17 of Chapter 6) as submitted by Mayor Caroline Simmons. The committee heard presentations from Chief of Staff Bridget Fox, Attorney Lee, and testimony from former commission chair Mr. Garst. After extensive discussion, the committee voted 6-3 to postpone the item to the next meeting (April 2026).
Discussion Items
- LR 32.016 – Repeal of the Appointments Commission: Chief Fox presented an overview of the commission's creation in 2021, intended to address vacancies and recruit unaffiliated/independent voters. She noted that in practice, the commission added a bureaucratic layer, with attendance and quorum issues in 2025. Since December 2021, the administration has appointed 186 residents to boards and commissions: 68% men, 31% women; 49% Democrats, 34% Republicans, 15% unaffiliated/independent. The city has 76,000+ registered voters: 42% Democrat, 19% Republican, 37% unaffiliated. The administration modernized the application portal (Granicus) and provides monthly demographic updates. Chief Fox argued the mayor's office and political parties provide sufficient outreach, and the commission was not additive.
- Testimony from Mr. Garst (former chair): Mr. Garst stated the commission faced hurdles: three vacant seats, one expired seat, and a member unavailable due to family issues. He claimed only three unaffiliated members were seated on all boards as of December 1, 2025, and questioned the effectiveness of the mayor's outreach. He suggested the commission could improve transparency and recruitment if fully staffed, and that the interview process was redundant. He expressed frustration with lack of responsiveness from the administration.
- Committee Discussion:
- Representative Boudreau questioned whether the commission effectively advanced goals of independent outreach or checks on the administration, noting the commission is mayor-appointed. He suggested more comprehensive reform may be needed.
- Vice Chair Camparelli noted the commission was not fully staffed or resourced, and advocated for preserving and reimagining it rather than repealing.
- Representative Le Pine expressed concern about future administrations that may lack commitment to transparency and balanced appointments, and asked what checks would remain. Chief Fox replied that the board of reps and the functional necessity of boards (e.g., Social Services Commission for fair rent complaints) create natural pressure.
- Representative Weinberg noted that in the last 15 months, 80 nominations were put forward: 43 Democrat, 25 Republican, 12 unaffiliated/independent. He also highlighted the role of board members in recruiting candidates and the importance of the Personnel Commission for city operations.
- Chair McEwen supported codifying the current transparency practices (e.g., monthly data reports) to ensure future administrations maintain them, and suggested an annual report. He expressed openness to repeal if paired with such codification.
- Representative Hughes supported immediate repeal, citing the commission's lack of quorum and the need to streamline filling vacancies.
Key Outcomes
- Motion to Postpone: Vice Chair Camparelli moved to postpone the item to the next meeting. The motion passed 6-3 (Weinberg, Stone, Boudreau, Blank, Camparelli, Chair McEwen in favor; Le Pine, Hyatt, Hughes opposed). The item will be on the April 2026 agenda.
- No other items: The meeting adjourned at 7:06 PM.
Meeting Transcript
Meeting of the legislative rules committee, the board of representatives as of 603 p.m. March 24th, 2026. Uh, and I note that I see representatives blank, oudreau, camparelli, hughes, hyatt, lapine, myself, Stone, and Weinberg in attendance, as well as President Shaw. I believe that is it. Representatives of the board. If there are any other representatives of the board that are present that I haven't called attention to, please, of course, let your soul be known. Chair McEwen. Yes. Uh, can you make rep Walston a participant? All right, thank you. And Rep Walston. I'm in. Hello. All righty. So at this time it seems that we have all voting members of the committee in attendance, so I declare we do a quorum. And we're proceed with the first item on the agenda, which is LR 32.016, an ordinance for publication to repeal the appointments commission for Article 17 of chapter six, including section six dash one two one through six-124 of the code of ordinance submitted by Mayor Caroline Simmons. Uh, and in attendance, we also have uh several invitees, including Chief Fox. Hello and welcome. Uh turn to be pronounced that correctly. I'm sorry, I didn't hear you. Gars, did I pronounce that correctly? Yes, that's correct. Thank you very much. Um, and so with that, um, before I kind of open the floor, um would any of our invitees Chief Fox, you want to sure. Um, so we do have a presentation that I put together, and maybe Barbara might be able to share that on the screen or probably supposed to be. Sure. So while that's being brought up, um, thank you all for taking the time to review this item. I'm joined by attorney Lee, who's here to help answer any of the legal questions that come up as it relates to the charter. But perfect. Here is our presentation. Yep. Oh, can you beat me to it? Perfect. So the first slide is really an overview of how the commission was created and when the commission was created. And I'll share that initially when this was created in 2021, it was designed to facilitate and clarify the appointments process with the goal of addressing a high number of vacancies and higher and expired seats, as well as doing everything that the city could residents who were either unaffiliated or independent voters and not attached to either the two major political parties. So it was designed to be a nine-member body and consists of seven members appointed by the mayor and confirmed by the board of reps and two voting members from the board of representatives. So this next slide is an overview of the reality. So the commission was created before our time, I think with a worthy intent of doing the of achieving the goals that I just laid out. However, in practice, it was a more challenging task for members of the commission to do what the commission was set out to do. So this chart breaks down in the month of in the year of 2025, the attendance rates and the inability essentially um, in many cases to get a quorum at the actual appointments commission. And it was of course our priority when we came in to fill expired seats and vacancies, which we have had success in doing since we started four plus years ago. So ultimately, the decision to repeal this commission is a result of in practice. The commission was adding a bureaucratic layer that wasn't assisting with the expedition of filling seats. Next slide, please. Thank you. So this slide is really an overview of what's taken place since we started. So since December 2021, when we started, our administration has appointed with, of course, the appointee authority of the Board of Reps, 186 residents to boards and commission. As in terms of demographic breakdown, 68% have been men, 31% have been women. Close to half of those have been Democrats, while 34% have been Republican, and 15% have represented either unaffiliated or an independent working party, whatever they a person identifies as. So we are in the process of filling the 43 terms that were expired.
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