Commission gets to work on New Haven charter update

NEW HAVEN — Members of the city’s new Charter Revision Commission received a crash course in what they can and cannot do, as they sat down this week with the attorney guiding them through the process of bringing New Haven’s government up to date.

In Connecticut, municipalities “can only wield the power that is expressly granted to them,” said Steve Mednick, a onetime city alder and later corporation counsel who in recent years has worked with nine of the state’s 12 largest cities to revise their charters.

While Mednick does this for a living, “the New Haven charter is a charter that I’ve lived with for a very long time, since I was a young alder in the 1980s.

“The critical point,” he said, “is that there are no inherent powers at the local level. We get our power entirely from the state government.”

That’s one reason why certain things that some people might want to see come out of charter revision, such as term limits, aren’t so easy.

With regard to term limits, you “can’t do it,” Mednick said. “There’s no express, granted authority.”

The same is true with the power to recall officials, he said.

As he spoke Monday night at City Hall, members of the Charter Revision Commission listened, including Chairman and City Clerk Michael Smart, Board of Alders Majority Leader Richard Furlow, D-27, East Shore Alder Salvatore DeCola, D-17, Sandra Trevino, Anne Schwartz, Serena Neal-Sanjurjo, former Judge of Probate John “Jack” Keyes and Patricia Melton.

Mednick also said it was important to note that because of the way enabling legislation is written, the contents of a collective bargaining agreement trump the local charter.

In some other communities, including Hamden, “We’ve had to reverse-engineer some charters ... to bring them in line with collective bargaining agreements,” he said.

One way in which New Haven already “is in pretty good shape” is that its charter provides a good balance between the powers of the mayor and the Board of Alders, Mednick told commission. “I think New Haven has a strong legislative body that can hold the mayor accountable,” he said, and “I think it has a strong mayor who can hold the Board of Alders accountable.”

Among other things, the commission set an initial public hearing date for Feb. 9 — intended for the general public to speak — a second public hearing for Feb 16 (for public officials) and a third public hearing for May 9, just prior to the commission’s requirement to submit a final report to the alders by May 15, 2023.

All three hearings are scheduled for 6 p.m. in the Board of Alders chamber in City Hall.

The commission also set workshops for March 8 (snow date of March 9), March 23, April 11, April 12, April 22 and April 25. All are at 6 p.m. in the Board of Alders chamber except the April 22 workshop, which is at 10 a.m. on a Saturday.

Anyone seeking to comment at a public hearing should submit a request to testify via email to publictestimony@newhavenct.gov before 2 p.m. on the day of the hearing, or submit written testimony to the same address.

The Board of Alders, in its Dec. 4 resolution creating the commission, laid out a series of goals:

• Making the charter gender neutral throughout.

• Correcting language on the number and terms of the members of the Board of Education.

• Updating Board of Alders compensation to $5,000 for alders and $6,250 for president and including an increase tied to cost-ofliving increases.

• Consideration of fouryear terms for mayor, city clerk, alders and registrars of voters.

• Maintaining the same number of alders on boards and commissions when all alders are of the same party.

• Updating the charter to include provisions requiring all memoranda of understanding to be approved by the alders.

• Reviewing the Parks Commission lifetime appointments.

• Remove provisions that have timed out from the previous charter including but not limited to those related to approving ordinances concerning purchasing and department heads qualifications.

• Review and consider extending the time period for the approval of nominees to boards and commissions from 60 days to 90 days.

• Review the mayor’s request that residency requirements only apply to those of his appointees approved by the Board of Alders, which include fire chief, police chief, the four coordinators — chief administrative officer, controller, community services administrator and economic development administrator. The resolution asks that other appointees that don’t require Board of Alders approval no longer be required to be resident electors.