Shelton officials making a third attempt at charter revision
SHELTON — City officials are hoping the third time will be a charm for its charter revision plans.
The Board of Aldermen, at its meeting Tuesday, appointed Republicans Win Oppel and Joanna Carloni and unaffiliateds Peter Finch, David Presutto and Ruth Ann Dunford to the newly formed Charter Revision Commission, the third such commission in four years.
“The last Charter Revision Commission did a lot of good work,” said Oppel, who chaired the previous commission last year. “I and other commission members feel that these recommendations were overshadowed by the focus on the makeup of the Board of Education.”
Voters rejected the proposed charter revisions in November. Charter revisions included increasing the party maximum split for the Board of Education from 5-4 to 6-3 and raising the amount available for the aldermen to bond.
A previous round of proposed charter changes — with those same changes as well as the elimination of the Board of Apportionment and Taxation — were resoundingly defeated by voters in 2020.
In the past two votes on charter revision, the city presented the proposed changes as one question on the ballot. That, according to Oppel, will not be a necessity for the next vote on charter revisions.
“We have the ability to present recommendations to the voters in the form of multiple questions,” Oppel said.
Board of Aldermen President John Anglace, Jr., confirmed that Mayor Mark Lauretti — who had previously been steadfast in his desire for only one ballot question on charter revisions — has agreed to offer multiple questions on the ballot this time.
Lauretti did return a request for comment.
“The Board of Aldermen will meet with the Board of Education to discuss each issue and ask the Board of Education to take a position on each question since they have the most to gain or lose,” Anglace said.
The Charter Revision Commission will hold an initial meeting, at which it will set a public hearing date and its regular schedule.
In the most recent charter revision proposal, Oppel stated the commission found several items in the text that needed to be addressed to better improve city operations, specifically some of the financial components.
That proposal — the one voters rejected in November — called for bid limits to be increased from $1,900 to $4,999 to “save time and money” in the long run as officials will not need to prepare bid documents for such purchases. It also called for the increase in the amount aldermen can bond without a referendum from 2 percent to 2.5 percent of the municipal budget.
Another revision called for increasing the amount requiring a building committee to be formed from $500,000 to $750,000.
The hot button issue remained the change in the party maximum on the Board of Education. The past Charter Revision Commission in 2020 offered the same change, 5-4 to 6-3, but those recommendations were voted down.
The most recent revisions also brought back the proposal to create a citywide technology committee made up of nine members — three appointed by the mayor, three by the Board of Aldermen and three by the Board of Education.