Voters to decide charter proposal
Town to send questions to residents on controversial issue
RIDGEFIELD — The Board of Selectmen has decided that voters will get the final say on a controversial proposal to create a separate Inland and Wetlands Board.
The concept has divided both officials and residents as the town works to revise its charter.
The proposal will be one of nine charter revision questions, approved by the selectmen this week, that will head to the ballot in November. It asks voters whether the Inland and Wetlands Board should become separate from the Planning and Zoning Commission instead of the current system, where the same nine members act as both.
Originally, the Board of Selectmen had narrowly approved a recommendation that the Charter Revision Commission take out the suggested change from its proposal.
But, after the Charter Revision Commission rejected the recommendation, the selectmen decided the issue should go to the voters.
“(Members felt) that it’s important that the people of the town of Ridgefield have the opportunity to vote on this important question,” First Selectman Rudy Marconi said.
The rest of the “final report” the selectmen sent to the ballot was largely the same as the draft report previously reviewed by the board, aside from minor clarifications suggested by the selectmen.
Perhaps the most substantive change, though, was that the Charter Revision Commission agreed to take the selectmen’s suggested approach to revising the charter’s standards of conduct section for town officials and employees.
The commission had originally rewritten the entire section, but some of the selectmen were concerned about a few of the new rules, including more restrictions for potential conflict of interest situations.
They agreed that it might make more sense to rewrite the section using a town ordinance instead of in the charter, which is reviewed every four years, so that any unintended consequences can be more easily addressed.
The question on the ballot will ask voters to approve deleting the current standards of conduct so that it can be replaced by the ordinance. Until the ordinance is created, though, the current rules will stay in place.
Marconi said the selectmen plan to use the research already done by the charter commission on the topic and will likely need to form a committee to draft the ordinance.
“That will be up to the Board of Selectmen, but it may not be a bad idea to form a smaller committee to review the charter and have occasional reports to the board and a discussion so that we can move this forward," Marconi said.