Council Begins Public Hearings on Proposed Charter Changes

By Adam Swift

The Town Council began the first of what it expects to be three nights of public hearings on recommendations made by the Ordinance Review Committee (ORC) at its meeting next week.

The ORC has recommended making 13 changes to town government, the majority of them being revisions to the town charter, which will need to be approved by a town-wide vote.

Winthrop Council President James Letterie said the council will vote on whether to move forward on putting the proposed charter changes on the town ballot following the public hearing process.

“Ultimately, this body is making the decision whether it goes to the whole town for a vote, because we do not make the ultimate decision on this,” said Letterie. “Any decision made on any change will be voted on by the constituents.”

At last week’s meeting, the council ran through a review of about a half-dozen proposed changes, starting with ones that had wide support from the nine-member ORC.

Letterie said two of the charter recommendations likely to cause more discussion and possible dissent will be discussed in more depth at future council meetings. Those proposals include changing the makeup and term lengths of town councilors, and a proposed recall mechanism for elected officials.

The first charter change discussed last week concerned the abandonment language in the charter for town councilors who miss an excessive amount of meetings.

Under the current language, a councilor can miss 50 percent of meetings without an excuse and not be removed from office. The new language recommended by the ORC and the council’s rules and ordinance subcommittee state a councilor could be removed from office if they missed 50 percent of meetings in a three month period.

“This is to take a more realistic look and say you were elected by the community to serve them and there should be more stringent requirements,” said Letterie.

Precinct 6 Councilor and rules and ordinance committee chair Stephen Ruggiero noted that there are also more ways for councilors to participate thanks to Zoom and online meetings.

There was also little discussion on a charter change that would require multiple member boards to elect a chairperson at the first meeting of the new fiscal year.

Letterie suggested that the council also add language requiring the boards elect a vice chair. It was also noted that some boards, such as the Board of Health, are required by law to elect a chair at the beginning of the calendar year.

The council also discussed an ordinance change that would disallow use variances.

“Right now, if something is zone Residential A, like a single-family home and you go to sell that home, all you need to do to put a convenience store on the first floor and to build up a couple stories is to get a use variance from the zoning board of appeals,” said Ruggeiro.

Most municipalities in the state do not allow for the use variances. Ruggeiro said general laws would allow the variances to go before the planning board for a recommendation with a vote by the town council.

Projects would still go before the zoning board if they were looking for zoning relief for things such as lot size or setbacks.

“So really, you are getting three bodies, the planning board, the town council, and the zoning board of appeals, in order to make any substantial changes,” said Ruggeiro.

Ruggeiro also noted that doing away with the use variance is an ordinance change and not a charter change, and would only need the approval of the town council.

Letterie said he generally supported the change, but would like some feedback from the town manager and legal counsel before making a final decision.

The ORC also recommended a change in how vacancies are filled in elected bodies outside the town council. Currently, the council is involved in voting to fill any vacancies, along with the affected board.

However, since the council has nine members, Letterie said it actually puts more power in the council’s hands rather than the board with the vacancy. The change would allow the elected board to select its own candidate.

“It seems like a no-brainer, but I’ve been told that technically, the highest-ranking elected body has to be represented on these vacancies,” said Letterie.

Council members agreed they should also look into the proposal a little more to see if there were any legal impediments to enacting it.

The ORC also recommended the town form a water and sewer advisory committee, another move that could be done by town council vote.

“Water rates and the process have been one of the most heavily scrutinized things in town government,” said Ruggeiro. “We’ve had local and regional news covering our water rates, we’ve had audits and discussions and protests about the water rates, so I think this is the ORC hearing all that.”