There’s some back-and-forth in the charter revision process, and the selectmen are having a public hearing tonight on the Charter Revision Commission’s initial report.
The selectmen discussed the report last Wednesday, and have already agreed upon some suggestions that they’re sending back to the charter commission for another look.
The public hearing is tonight, Thursday, July 31, and starts at 6:30 in the lower level conference room of town hall.
Among the things the selectmen are asking the charter commission to look at again is the commission’s decision not to amend the charter to have three department heads that are overseen by separate commissions — the police chief, planning director, and parks and recreation director — also report to the first selectman in day-to-day operations.
The move had been vehemently opposed by the Police Commission, and to a lesser extent the Planning and Zoning Commission.
The selectmen are now asking the charter commission to consider whether the reporting requirement to the first selectman might be put in the charter revisions for at least head of the Parks and Recreation Department, if not the other two where it sparked opposition.
The department has a large staff of both full-time and part-time workers, Mr. Marconi said. The first selectman and the town hall human resources office get involved in a lot of things that go on there as a result.
“There are a lot of administrative issues that we deal with pretty much on a weekly basis that would certainly justify the director of parks and recreation reporting to the first selectman’s office, since we do so much of the human resources,” Mr. Marconi said.
“It’s a people-intensive operation.”
Another revision issue the selectmen are asking the charter commission to reconsider concerns a proposal to make some currently elected town hall officials with paid jobs into appointed positions.
The Charter Revision Commission has gotten a suggestion that it consider making both the town tax collector and town treasurer into appointed positions. The charter commission decided to propose a revision that would make the treasurer an appointed position, but leave the tax collector elected office.
The selectmen wondered if the commission might not look at that again, and consider making both jobs appointed.
The selectmen are also asking the commission to remove language that it had included as a proposed charter revision, making emergency medical services an official responsibility of the fire department.
This troubled the selectmen because it limits the town’s future options on ambulance service. While it reflects the current situation of the fire department running all emergency medical transportation, there were times not so many years back when a hired paramedic service from Danbury Ambulance augmented the fire department ambulances.
If, someday, the town officials had reason to want to consider such an arrangement again, the selectmen said, they wouldn’t want charter language to get in the way.
There were many proposed charter revisions in the commission’s 42-page report that the selectmen didn’t ask to be reconsidered.
Among them are:
•Removal of a charter section requiring boards and commissions to annually report, with percentages, the attendance records of all their individual members
•That town acceptance of an open space donation must be subject to a phase 1 environmental review.
•Board of Education capital requests, both within the budget process and as additional appropriations, would need be approved by the Board of Selectmen and as well as the Board of Finance before going to the town meeting.
•The finance board’s “minority representation” balance would limit any one political party to three of five members, as on the Board of Selectmen. (Currently four of five finance board members may be from the same party.)
•Committees established by the Board of Selectmen shall terminated 30 days after the next regular town election of the Board of Selectmen.
•The Commission on Aging would be increased from eight to nine members.
•The Conservation Commission would get two alternate members, in addition to its nine full members.
•Removal of the charter section calling for appointment of a committee to organize and publicize the annual town budget meeting, leaving those duties to the selectmen.
•Removal of a requirement that town agencies submit a summary report of activities and accomplishments each fiscal year.
The full charter revision commission report is available on the town’s website — www.ridgefieldct.org — by clicking on the notice posted there concerning tonight’s public hearing.