Opinion: Charter Review – Public Take Notice. It Will Be Ten Years Before You Have Another Chance to Weigh In.
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The Town of Amherst adopted the Amherst Home Rule Charter on September 17, 2017 that replaced representative Town Meeting with a 13-member elected Town Council and made other fundamental changes to the way the town is governed. We now have had six years of experience with this form of government and the individuals who administer it and it’s time for a second look.
The current Charter allows for periodic, formal reviews of its terms, but only during “years that end in 4” (Section 9.6). This year, 2024, is the first opportunity to begin scrutinizing the Charter’s terms and recommending changes to it. The Town Council ultimately will decide whether and to what extent any recommendations will be adopted.
The formal review process is in the hands of the 9-member Charter Review Committee, appointed by the Town Council. Town Council delegated to the Government, Organization and Legislation Committee (GOL) the initial process of interviewing and recommending candidates. GOL initially recommended reducing the size of the committee to seven members (from the originally proposed nine), claiming that the pool of 18 candidates was too small. After reopening the application process, GOL recommended, and Town Council approved, the following members:
Andy Churchill
Meg Gage
Julian Hynes
Bernie Kubiak
Ken LeBlond
Erica Mijlin
Dan Muscat
Raphael Rogers
Marcus Smith
So far, the Charter Review Committee has met four times, with the bulk of the meetings focused on organization and procedural matters. After serving as temporary Chair, Julian Hynes was elected to that post permanently. Erica Mijlin was elected Vice Chair. The committee now is ready to begin its thorough review of the Charter’s terms at their next scheduled meeting on December 12.
Constraints
The work of the committee is already subject to some constraints. Athena O’Keeffe, Clerk of the Council, serves as staff liaison for the committee. O’Keeffe informed the committee that it cannot meet without her in attendance, thus affecting the ability of the committee to schedule meetings. O’Keeffe also told the committee that only she can facilitate contact between the committee and any other town staff member, that members generally should not speak to each other between meetings, that the committee’s ability to modify the town charter review webpage will be limited by her capacity, and that she would not facilitate members of the committee sharing contact information with each other. Except for the last point, these constraints are not different from those imposed on resident members of other town committees and appear to have the effect of preventing robust resident engagement in the work of town committees. That the Charter Review Committee has challenged some of these practices is a good thing.
Scope of Review
Town Council President Lynn Griesemer stated when she authored the charter review committee charge in the summer of 2023, that state law, specifically M.G.L.c. 43B, section 10, prohibits the Charter Review Committee from discussing or making recommendations regarding the “composition, mode of election or appointment, or terms of office of the local legislative body…or the Town Manager.” This interpretation has been disputed both in theory and practice. Charter Review Committees in several Massachusetts municipalities have addressed these very issues, including Cambridge, Williamstown, Bridgewater, and Watertown. The committee now seems resolved that, even though relevant state law indicates that changes to these elements of the charter may require additional state legislative action, the law does not prohibit the committee from discussing and making recommendations on these topics.
Outreach
Although the Charter Review Committee is charged with the responsibility to review and recommend changes, it has stated that it does not intend to do this in a vacuum. The chair has made it clear that community outreach and community input are essential to the process. The committee is developing strategies to effectively inform town residents about the committee’s work and its expected timeline, including consideration of holding committee meetings at locations other than Town Hall. The committee also is developing ways to seek and encourage input from all sectors of the town’s population, especially those that are not often heard from. To date, the committee has received no funding to support these efforts but is developing an outreach budget to support a request for town funds in the near future.
Feedback Needed
As expected, the committee’s work already is of interest to some town residents. Councilor Mandi Jo Hanneke, a member of the Charter Commission that produced the Home Rule Charter, has submitted a nine-page commentary with suggested modifications. Over a two year period, the League of Women Voters Charter Review Task Force produced a series of recommendations to the Charter Review Committee, based on its good government principles, following a general outreach survey and report. Over the past few years, the Amherst Indy has posted comments from readers (see e.g. here, here, here, and here).
But that is not enough. The Charter Review Committee wants to encourage robust input from as many residents as possible. In addition to the outreach strategies that the committee is developing, each committee meeting will include the opportunity for public comment. In addition, anyone can submit written comments and suggestions by emailing Athena O’Keeffe at okeeffea@amherstma.gov.
It is essential that the town be fully informed and engaged in this important process so that we can make our concerns known, provide insight into how our current form of government has affected our lives, and submit thoughtful suggestions for improvement. Under the current terms of the Charter, the chance for input will not happen again until 2034. Let us all take full advantage of the opportunity we have now.
Anita Sarro is a nurse and retired healthcare attorney and longtime resident of Amherst.
I am hoping that this summary of the “constraints” on the the committee are not accurate. I did not attend this meeting, so I can’t say what what was said. I do want to say that under Open Meeting Law, the staff liaison to any committee does not have to be present for a committee to do it’s work. Also, committee members can talk outside of a meeting so long as a voting majority of members do not discuss issues that they will be voting on. Members should take steps to make sure there are not subsequent conversations with additional members, creating a game of telephone that becomes improper deliberation. Here, with a 9 member charter committee 4 could talk outside a meeting. Members should definitely share contact information with each other for a variety of reasons. ( Several times during Planning Board meetings a missing member has texted me that they could not get into the zoom meeting.) Also, committee members can share information and articles so long as they do not offer their personal opinions on any matter that they will be voting on. (So yes to: “here is an article on forms of local government” and No to: “here is a great article on successful forms of local government “.) Committee members also can freely communicate over logistical matters such as meeting dates and times, although it’s ofter best to have members send their info to one person to avoid chaos. While the committee liaison may request that charter committee members not contact town staff but they have no legal authority to require it.
Thanks to Anita Sarro for this vigorous and pointed update on how things appear to stand with regard to the role of the Clerk and the interpretation of Massachusetts General Laws. And thanks to Janet McGowan for her explicit and, I think, proper challenge to the assertions made by the Clerk and the President of the Council. It is good to hear that the Committee is challenging both of these assumptions.
Under its Rules of Procedure, the Town Council may at any time impose term limits on its officers, committee chairs or any other internal organizational feature, The Council Presidency has many powers attached to it and there is no reason to wait for a decade to elapse to attach a limit to the amount of time any one Council member may have access to those powers.
I wish I could be optimistic about the public’s response to the Committee’s request for input. At one point we could count on at least 240 residents participating in the consideration of the Town’s affairs but that is no longer the case, and since recently the Town Manager has described dissenters as “agitators” it is unlikely that many will do so, unless the Committee makes it clear that while it is a creature of the Town Council it is an independent body and particularly welcomes a wide range of opinions about how our governance works and should work.
While it is true that in Amherst only the H is silent, that H stands for Heard. So many townspeople have spoken to, petitioned, asked for information from and yes agitated to our town leaders, boards and committees on so many issues–without response or adjustment in decisions. Think of all the petitions to Town Council that fell flat. The only government entity that listened to residents was town meeting. In the past, I told residents, “Go to town meeting. It’s the only government body that will listen.” I would now add the ZBA and ConCom to this list, but can think of few others. We can speak and speak but can’t control whether we are heard.
The term “agitators” is among the first words in the Authoritarian Dictionary.
We’re in store for a long winter in Amherst…..
“Every system is perfectly designed to get the result that it does.” – Dr. W. Edwards Deming