Recall Provision Among Changes Contemplated for Williamstown Charter
WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — The Charter Review Committee is considering a number of proposals for changes to the existing town charter.
At its December meeting, no proposal garnered more discussion than one that, even if ultimately adopted, is likely to be rarely implemented.
"Not a lot of communities have adopted the recall," Patricia Lloyd of the Collins Center for Public Management at the University of Massachusetts at Boston told the committee on Dec. 7. "This is a newer trend. We probably don't have as much information on what the exact [thresholds are]. There are very few recalls that have gone to the election in the state. There are maybe a handful at most in a given year that have been brought, and, of those, most are resolved either by the resignation of the person being recalled or, oftentimes, the signature threshold hasn't been met.
"In general, recalls are very rare."
Lloyd met virtually with the committee to discuss a number of potential alterations to the charter that have come out of the seven-person ad hoc committee's deliberations since September 2022 and a townwide survey it conducted.
The Select Board convened the Charter Review Committee to look at the foundational document of town government, and two members of the board, Andrew Hogeland and Jeffrey Johnson, are among its seven members.
Any proposed changes to come from the committee would go to town meeting in the form of a home rule petition. If the meeting approves the proposed change, it goes to the Legislature, which has final approval of municipal charters.
The Williamstown Charter, roughly the equivalent of a constitution for state and federal government, has not changed much since it was adopted in 1956.
Town meeting did in 2022 pass two home rule petitions: removing the requirement that the town manager reside in town and replacing gender-specific language with gender-neutral language.
The former passed muster in the Legislature. The latter has languished on Beacon Hill.
Some of the proposals on the desk of the Charter Review Committee, like the gender-neutral language change, are meant to address anachronisms in the nearly 70-year-old document: removing a reference to the town "School Committee," which was superseded by the Mount Greylock Regional School Committee when the PreK-12 system fully regionalized in 2017; and deleting a reference to the town's Welfare Agent, which no longer exists.
Another would bring the charter in line with state law. When passed in 1956, the charter prohibited members of the "Board of Selectmen, School Committee or of the Finance Committee" from holding another town office. Since the charter was adopted, the town has adopted the commonwealth's Community Preservation Act, which requires a representative from the Select Board and from the Fin Comm to serve on the Community Preservation Committee. And the town's Affordable Housing Trust, established by town meeting 2012, has a charter that specifies a member of the Select Board shall serve on the trust's board.
One change would clear up some confusion that arose during the pandemic, when there was significantly longer than the customary one-week gap between the spring annual town election and the town meeting, where winners of offices in the town election usually are sworn in.
The current draft language of the committee would change the succession language as follows: "The term of office of all elected town officials shall end when their successors are elected and qualified, provided, however, that if annual town elections are held prior to annual town meeting, then in addition such terms shall end either at the conclusion of town meeting or within 20 days of the election, whichever is sooner."
The Charter Review Committee has considered but is not now moving forward with a couple of more radical changes that have been discussed in recent years: changing the form of town meeting from open to representative and/or creating a step that allows voters to go to the polls after town meeting to give final approvals to articles passed by the meeting.
Open town meeting was the overwhelming preference of the 500 or so residents responding to the committee's survey, and some in town government have noted the difficulty towns sometimes have getting candidates to run for office to serve at town meeting.
The ballot idea is one that Hogeland called "intriguing" at the Dec. 7 meeting, but it is one that he and his colleagues feel the town needs more information about — including its legality under state law — before moving forward.
The commonwealth does allow for towns and cities to implement a recall provision, but there is latitude about the mechanics of how such a step could be implemented in local governance.
At its December meeting, the members of the Charter Review Committee discussed at length how to determine what number of signatures are required to trigger a recall election and whether a special election on a recall question should have a minimum required turnout in order to be effective.
"I think we need to put a requirement that a certain percentage of the voters must vote," Anne Skinner said. "If only 500 people show up to vote, it's not a valid election. Required voter participation, I think, is important.
"If only the 500 people who signed the petition show up on election day … "
Other members of the committee responded that proposed recall provision would allow time for both sides to get out the vote and that an official who wants to hold onto their office will fight to get their supporters to the poll for a special election.
"If we have a recall election, whoever shows up, their decision should be honored," Hogeland said. "We don't have a minimum election turnout to elect someone, why should we have one to recall them? And the threshold to ask the question is pretty high."
Another substantive change to the charter the committee is considering recommending the Select Board put on the May town meeting ballot: creating a mechanism in the charter to make sure the charter is being followed.
Currently there is no charter enforcement provision in the 1956 document. The Collins Center's Lloyd pointed to a couple of models other towns created to hear complaints from residents alleging charter violations.
"The objective is really bringing it out into the light and allowing the Select Board or whoever is involved, the respondent, to look at the issue and have it on file so it becomes part of the public record," Lloyd said. "The fact of the matter is, there are so many different ways to violate the charter, so many different entities who might be involved in that type of charter violation. And sometimes it would be the Select Board's decision. Sometimes it would be some other board's decision to look into it and seek counsel to decide whether it was violated or not.
"As I mentioned [in a memo to the committee], no town, no Select Board is going to want to have to say, definitively, 'Yes the charter was violated,' because it would expose the town to liability in certain circumstances. Instead, it gives them the opportunity to act in whatever way they feel is appropriate to address the issue."
The Charter Review Committee's next meeting is scheduled for Jan. 4 at 1:30 p.m.
Tags: charter review,
