Bloomfield Charter Revision Committee - Regular Meeting

Good evening, everyone. And welcome to the meeting of the Charter Revision Commission. My name is Joe Suggs, and I'm chairman of the commission. And let the roll call indicate that all commission members are present with the exception of... With the exception of... Commissioner Coleman, let me just introduce the members of the commission who are present. To my left is Commissioner Brad Klein. And at the other end of the table is Commissioner Alvin Turner. And also to his left is Commissioner Dwight Bolton. And as I indicated, Commissioner Coleman should be here shortly. Also we have online to assist us, town attorney, Andrew Crumby, who will be making a presentation in just a few minutes. And the director of operations and communications, India Rogers is also present. With that, let me begin by thanking the commissioners for once again, agreeing to be members of the commission and go through the charter. You should have received some materials from India regarding the charges from the town council. We will certainly adhere to those, but understand we are free to discuss and debate and make recommend on any section of the charter that we feel

is appropriate.

So to begin, I would like to call on Attorney Andrew Crumby to give us an overview of the process. Attorney Crumby, are you all set?

All set. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Welcome back, commissioners. In addition to the chairman, I thank you for your service and your willingness to assist the town in this important endeavor. So I looked through the packet, and I know you folks received the timeline that I provided, and it's similar to the timeline you received during your last meeting. service on this commission. And so what I thought I would do is to go through maybe phase one and phase two of your work. And that will take us up to roughly January 30th, 2027, when we will start phase three and then beyond. No sense in going through the later work now when we can address that when we get to it. So I'd like to keep you focused on maybe phase one, phase two. So if you take a look at your timeline, under that first step, phase one, obviously the initiation of the commission has occurred. That was January 12th. the appointment of the commissioners uh you're all seated that occurred february 2nd and um we're now into uh the commission work phase which is phase two as you may recall from the last uh go round um the first thing that you want to do before you get into any substantive work is hold a public hearing. The chairman, I'm sure, will schedule that sometime this evening. But the goal of that step is to gather and collect as much information from the public as possible. And the public includes, you know, members of City Hall, Town Hall, and also the public at large. Hopefully, it was encouraged, I know, during the council meetings, but hopefully folks will come out and let their voices be heard. So that's the first step you need to do before any substantive work begins. And that should take place. The draft report is due to town council on January 30th, right? So that's the initial deadline that we're dealing with. If for some reason you are deep into your work and you find that you need more time, you simply will communicate that to the council and the council can move that deadline back. the only stiff deadline that we're dealing with is that 16 month period from the date of appointment. So that January 30th deadline is a target date. So once the public hearing is held and you feel you have sufficient information, you begin the drafting period. The drafting period will go from really from date of appointment to January, mid-January or so, early to mid-January, because once the draft report is completed, you will then hold a second public hearing. And that's to get additional input and to advise the public of the areas that you selected for change and the areas that you changed. Once you hold that second public hearing, If based on the comments you get from the public, you'd like to change the draft report, you can. And so that's why I recommend that that second public hearing be held in early January to give you time to revise, to further revise the draft report if that's necessary in order to meet the January 30th deadline. 2027 draft report deadline. Although the statute requires two public hearings before the draft report is submitted, the Commission can hold as many public hearings as it would like. And so if you don't feel like two public hearings is sufficient to get constructive feedback from the public, you are free to hold as many public hearings as you'd like, keeping in mind that January 30th submission date and that the draft report has to be done at least a couple of weeks to give yourself time to revise further after the last public hearing that you'd have. That takes us up to phase three. And as I said, I'm going to stop there at phase two, but phase three would involve the submission to the clerk of the council of the report on the January, on or before January 30th. And then the clerk would then forward that to council and then council will review and either act on it or send it back for more work. But as I said, we'll focus on just that phase two because that really is the bulk of your work. And I'm happy to take any questions that you may have on that step of the process.

Thank you, Attorney Crumby. Questions from the Commission? Commissioner Klein.

This process seems to be a little bit more specified and sequenced than the procedure that we undertook last time. Is that correct?

It's the same process, just laid out a little differently. I wanted to be as detailed as possible, both for you folks and the public. But it's the same process, same statute, same elements of the process that are listed here.

And if I can follow up, most of, I think all of our meetings that we had were public hearings. Is that correct?

No.

Last time, no?

No. No. So all your meetings were public, for sure, but they were not all public hearings.

So what would be the difference? I'll just leave it at this. What would be the difference between the hearings or the meetings we had at which the public could comment last time and the formal definition of a public hearing?

So public hearing is for essentially the entire meeting is for the public to show up, give feedback, give input for you to respond. You know, there's a back and forth. The regular meeting as we're having now is for the commissioners to talk to each other and do their substantive work. There's no communicating from you to the public during these meetings. And even if you had a public comment section to these meetings,

you're not responding to the public that it's just comment by the public thank you very welcome commissioner turner so let me communicate my secret desire my secret desire is to is to get credit for prior work and um so when the public comments are they commenting on the revised draft so the work that we did or they come are they are they able to go back to kind of what the charter is today, you know, without our input.

So the public can comment, Commissioner, on, as you know, anything they'd like, right? Everything is fair game. You, however, can limit your scope to new work, right? Not necessarily work that was done before. As you know, the The last draft was accepted by most of the council. And so I think that's a good starting point. You know, if this commission agrees with you know, the draft that was previously done, I think you can, you know, accept that draft as, as you said, work already completed, and then sort of move along from there. But any public comments is open to whatever, you know, the public would like to say about this process or your recommendations. Thank you. You're welcome.

Any further questions? Seeing none, thank you, Attorney Kramping. And if you could stand by for a few moments while we go through the rest, just in the event there are additional questions.

Certainly, Mr. Chair.

Thank you. One of the more important items we need to resolve is our meeting date. And somehow we have to balance the schedule of the members of the commission with the availability of the council chambers, which as I understand it, is the only room where we can have Zoom meetings so that the public can also participate and comment. And if I'm correct, I think the availability for this chamber is on Tuesdays. Which Tuesdays is this chamber available? While she's checking, how are Tuesdays particularly the second Tuesday for those who are here.

So I would need to go Tuesday by Tuesday, but the second Tuesday in September is the eighth, and that works. Fourth Tuesday. Yes, sir, because we've had to take into consideration council meetings.

So how is everyone for the fourth Tuesday of each month?

I'll manage. I have a crazy schedule. I'll figure it out.

Okay, great. Thank you. Appreciate your accommodation.

So the fourth Tuesday in September is, it looks like the 29th, 20. That's good. In October, One second. 22nd. 22nd. No, no, no.

October.

Of September. Okay. 22nd of September. 22nd works. September. Like me in October, October that it would be the 20th, 27th, that works. November, Thanksgiving does not work. Tuesday before Thanksgiving does not work.

Tuesday, it's September 29th, right?

That's Wednesday, 27th. Commissioner Turner, for the days that you have a conflict, does that mean you would not be able to be here in person? In other words, could you meet by Zoom?

No. If I have a conflict, I cannot meet at all.

I see.

Okay. So October... I get corrected on October, October again is 27th works. November, what date would that be? 24th would not work. We do in December.

Yes. I can meet all these. Hmm.

22nd does not work in December for me.

January.

January 26. I'm sure that works. Yep. You'll give me these dates so I can plug them in.

So Commissioner Turner, for the first four meetings, you would be unavailable for the November 24th and the December 22nd. Is that correct? Okay. But everyone else would be available. Okay. All right. Well, given once again that... That's the only availability for this room. Why don't we proceed with that Tuesday for our regular meetings? And somehow we'll, if we have to work around and move specific sections to a different day so that you can participate, perhaps we can do that.

None of those are drafting days, right?

Probably not unless January might be, but it doesn't have to be.

January, I'm good.

Right, right.

I'm good.

No, I don't think we'll be drafting before then. Okay? Sounds good. Is that okay, India, with the schedule for the council chamber? Okay. So we'll lock that in. Those will be the dates of the meeting of the commission, and we can publicly notice that. Great, thank you.

Mr.

Chair, are we keeping the six o'clock?

Uh, now that's the second question. I know six o'clock. Sometimes it's a little difficult for people to get from work and get turned around and get to the commission meeting at six or seven, a better time.

Yes. Doesn't matter.

Yeah, she did. Yeah. So it looks like seven is a better time.

Fine.

All right. So it will be seven o'clock on those two. Now, with that schedule in mind, are we prepared to schedule a public hearing? And could we consider our next meeting for a public hearing?

Yes.

So do we want to do a public hearing on the... Well, could we do it in September or no?

Sure.

Could we do a September bill?

Get it over with.

And what's the date? September 22nd, 7 p.m.? council chambers, public hearing.

Now that's going to be on Zoom, right? If I can.

Yes. Fine. Yes. Okay, everyone.

Good evening, Commissioner. So my name is India Rogers. I'm the Director of Operations and Communications for the town. And looking at the calendar for September, what I failed to mention is that we have Yom Kippur on the 21st on that Monday. So council doesn't meet because we honor that Jewish holiday. So we bumped that meeting to the 22nd.

So that's going to conflict with this room and you all together.

So going forward, honestly, the meeting in September, because we have a 30 day notice for it to be a regular meeting, we would have to schedule a special meeting anyway. So you could pick a special meeting date in September, but I was just trying to solidify a regular meeting schedule for the rest of the year. And then January, we will vote for another meeting schedule for a 2027.

So we could schedule a different date other than Tuesday or our first public hearing in September. and then revert to our regular Tuesday meetings for the remainder of our meetings for the year.

Yes, so if I could recommend for September, since council has a finance subcommittee meeting on the 22nd, that Wednesday the 23rd would be available as a special meeting for you all if you can meet that Wednesday on the 23rd of September instead of the 22nd.

Also 23rd with everyone.

Good for you.

I cannot do Wednesdays. I can't make that.

No. Okay. All right. Either way, I can't do it. 24th is a TPZ meeting here. The following week, we do have available, I would say, the fifth Tuesday is available, which is the 29th for the special meeting, if you would like.

29th, generally?

Works for me. Good. 29th? 29th, September 29th, special meeting at the 7 p.m. conference chambers. Yes, sir. We can do that. Public hearing. Mm-hmm.

Good. Okay, great. Thank you so much. All right, so we have our first public hearing. We have our schedule through January. The next item I would like to discuss is going through the actual charter itself. Obviously, it hasn't. It's been too long since we've gone through this process and everyone is intimately familiar with the charter and the discussions that we've had. As I look at the charter, I count approximately 53 total sections to the charter.

Of those 53,

I estimate there are approximately nine sections that at least during our last commission and from the public input that we received then and subsequent to that, there are approximately nine sections that may involve significant public input and discussion and debate. amongst ourselves. So the question I have for the commission is, should we attempt to isolate and address those sections that are gonna take a great deal of time and discussion and debate as a group and do those first? And then when we've completed those, go do the others that likely will not take very much and we'd be able to finish up more quickly or vice versa, do the less time consuming ones first and the difficult ones later, or do we wanna just go in order?

Mr. Chair, so when we started at the very beginning of the process, we got a charge from then mayor, providing us with the council's areas of interest. And do we have that for this current iteration?

Attorney Columbia, I don't know whether you're able to respond to that or whether we should have a member of the council or the mayor respond.

I can respond, Mr. Chair. So, Commissioner, yes, you do have that. And that's in the form of the charge from the town council. And the charge is simply a template for what the council would like you to look at, the sections of the charter the council would like you to look at. As Mr. Chair said in his opening, the entire charter is open to you for review and revision, but those sections in the charge from the council, you must look at.

I just don't see it. Where am I looking? I'm not sure.

Maybe India can answer that. That's either in your packet. If not, we'll certainly get it to you.

We don't have it. Yeah, I don't have it either. I don't seem to have it. Well, let me ask a more fundamental question. It would be my suggestion. This page?

It would be my suggestion that

that we review each section of the charter and not omit or neglect any section of the charter and do a comprehensive review, which obviously would include those sections requested by the council. Is there any objection or any, of the thought regarding.

So Mr. Chair, this feels premature. It was evident from the public, from the, I said the last two meetings, the last two meetings were quite interesting. Right before we sent the document over to the council, there were some hot button topics that were raised, which I'm not sure reflected in what we did. And I think this document that you pointed to is kind of what we did, this executive summary, not really reflecting what we did. So that's one. So there were public comments not really reflected in what we did. Number two, I don't have a sense of I did go to that council meeting where there are changes were adopted, I think. And there was like no discussion of it at that council meeting. So I'd like to know if upon reflection, there are any kind of hot button topics from the council. And so if we don't have to decide now in terms of what our approach will be, I would love to wait for some input from the mayor, I hate to go through public hearings again before we decide how we're going to do this, but I would like to be flexible enough to take into account any hot button issues that arise from public hearings.

I guess what I'm suggesting, Commissioner Turner, is that while we await whatever specific issues the council had in mind, if any, and get that from them, we adopt the position that we will review the charter in its entirety, including those that the council may have specifically requested to be reviewed. And again, we'll get that from them if they have provided that. Secondly, I'm suggesting that we look at the seven or eight or nine issues that have stimulated the most interest and the most discussion and that may be the most consequential and take them as a group and address those first so that we can spend as much time as necessary to work on those before we begin to address others which may not require as much time and likely will not require any change. if that's okay with you.

It makes sense to me.

Let me just highlight the sections that I have identified that may require a lengthy discussion debate and public input and input from the administration as well. And this can change and other members may have others that they'd like to add or discuss. Under Chapter 2, I would suggest that Section 201, which are the terms of office of elected officials, the length of terms, whether they should be two years or four years. Under Chapter 3, Section 301, council compensation. There was a great deal of discussion about whether various members of board or council should be paid. I think we need to spend more time on that. Again, under, well, on section 302, the selection of the mayor, how the mayor is selected. Section 308, petitions for ordinances and referendums, the number of signatures required, et cetera. Section 310, referendum on bond issue. Moving on to Chapter 5, section five zero two town manager residents again under chapter five section five all four treasure as you know we remove that there was some more discussion and i think there is interest in discussing that further And finally, under chapter nine, section 906, the budget referendum. So those are the sections that I think we will require and will generate significant input both by the administration and by the public and that we will need to consider further. My further suggestion would be that we could divide those up into meetings. Perhaps we could do two of those per meeting or three or one, depending on what we think, how long we think they're going to take. The remainder of the sections I think we can get through quite quickly because they don't involve any substantial change and didn't generate much interest or discussion previously or since our report. Again, open to any additional ones other than me. have other sections that they think need further discussion. Commissioner Klein.

Perhaps Attorney Crumby can answer this. I'm wondering, first of all, I appreciate, and it's a very good list that you've given us. It's not as if we ignored the rest of the charter in those deliberations. We went through everything. So the question I have for Attorney Crumby is the statutory authority of this commission to what extent are we beholden to orders or requirements from a council or a mayor or anyone else outside of the commission for how we do our job? Because I'm worried if we get instructions from another town body, who's going to hold us and how are we being held accountable or are we being trusted to have deliberated carefully through our conversations? And in my sense is we did a pretty good job. We trust each other. We're going through the whole document. The fact that we have a good list here from our chair doesn't, I hate double negatives, doesn't mean we're ignoring the rest of the charter in that process.

I'll try to answer that. So commissioner, you are being trusted to deliberate and be thoughtful and complete in your work. At the end of the process, the council must approve or accept your recommendations for the recommendations to make it onto the ballot as a new charter. So on the one hand, you have autonomy to do your work the way you see fit to do it. But you know, you'll have to at some point address the concerns of the council, because ultimately, you know, they get the final say in whether or not they accept it, right? And there can be some back and forth at the end in that process where the draft report goes to council, they send it back and ask for additional revisions, but ultimately it will have to be presented to council that they'd have to accept it for it to become the charter for the town. Okay, that helps.

Any other questions or comments? Commissioner Turner.

I'd like to follow up on Commissioner's comment. I love instructions. I just love them, particularly when somebody else has a vote after my work. I like to be efficient. I like to kind of hit it. And I love people to tell me what they want to do. but I'm not beholden to them in terms of the decision-making. I mean, the decision is what it is. And having worked with this body before, we make really good decisions collectively. We just, we nail it. And so, but I want to know kind of what the game is. And I'm just, unfortunately, I'm this corporate guy. When I'm doing things that are my responsibility, I want to know what the CEO thinks upfront. and then we can kind of deal with it. In a church world, I want to know what the pastor thinks, and then we can kind of deal with it. So that's my approach, and it's an efficiency play.

Great, thank you. Other comments or questions? Okay, so as Commissioner Klein indicated, we're not going to be limited in the scope of our work. One, two, we will review the entire charter. But what we will try to do is prioritize those sections of the charter, which appear to be of more import, which will take more time, more discussion, and will be of more consequence to the town and to those initially and then upon completion of those, do the remainder thoroughly. And there should be time remaining that if we need to go back or there are some second thoughts that we can go back and review others that may have not got the attention that we think they should have. Does that sound like a clear way to start? Yeah. I think it was Commissioner Turner that mentioned efficiency time. And while this isn't on the agenda, I will say what I would like to do if there's a consensus of the commission is for our regular meetings, certainly not for the public hearings, but for our regular meetings, I would like to target a meeting of approximately an hour. plus or minus, to complete our work. If it takes more time, certainly it will take whatever time it needs, but at least it's my experience that once you get much beyond an hour, things sometimes become a little confused or get distracted, and I think most of us can stay very focused for a good solid hour. But again, whatever time, It takes, it takes, and we'll take that. But if we could just have as a soft goal to try to complete our work within an hour. That's really all that I think I have. India, is there anything else we need to cover this evening? Okay, and so, yes, Commissioner Klein.

It might be helpful in preparation for our next meeting with that goal of efficiency, if we, or one of us at least took the time officially to kind of compare the existing charter with the, what's the status of it? The document that we were left with unofficially to see where those differences lay. Maybe we could do that, you know, side by side.

I'd be good if somebody liked to undertake that.

It would be helpful to have an official copy. Yeah, and I don't think the... we'll figure out the status of the draft that we were left with last time. I don't know what the status of that is, but, or if it matters.

Yeah, Commissioner Turner.

Didn't the attorney do that toward the end, a side-by-side comparison?

I think, Commissioner, I think through you, Mr. Chairman, I think you are correct. And we do have, what I'll do is I'll pull up everything that I can find from the last time we went through this process and see what might be helpful or useful for you and get that over to you.

Great, thank you. All right, so to quickly summarize, we will conduct Our first public hearing on September 29th at 7 p.m. here in the council chambers. Our regularly scheduled meeting dates will be on, is that the fourth Tuesday? On the fourth Tuesday of each month through January. Attorney Crumby will attempt to locate and identify a side-by-side comparison of the charters and provide that to us. We will attempt to obtain any specific charges offered to us by the council. I don't want to put anyone on the spot. The mayor is here. If you'd like to comment on that or not, it's up to you. Okay. So we'll have that all in preparation and time for our public hearing. Any questions or comments? Seeing none, once again, thank everyone for being a part of this. Again, look forward to working with all of you, entertain emotions.