By David Fortier
The city council reviewed charter revision recommendations, decided against one, approved several others and requested the commission reconsider another in a joint meeting of the City Council and the Charter Revision Commission, May 25 in the council chambers.
The meeting was live streamed, as most city meetings have been during the coronavirus pandemic.
Commission business is not complete. They will have to convene at least one more time to consider the council’s positions and an additional request. The council approved the recommendations for a four-year appointed term for the city treasurer, a four-year elected term for the registrars of voters and the renumbering and table of contents for the charter.
The council voted down bringing term limits back to repeal them and also suggested the commission revisit a four-year term for mayor.
BACKGROUND
Charter revision commissions are convened shortly after city elections by the mayor to review and recommend changes to the city charter, which is a fairly complicated document not only for its dated language but also for its tangled relationship to the state legislature and its statutes. During its deliberations, the city’s lawyers, that is Corporation Counsel, are on hand to guide and advise the commission.
One of this year’s most notable examples is term limits. Certain state statutes provide a list of powers given to municipalities. Some exceptions exist. For instance, Bristol has a special act of the state granting it the power of recall and initiative. Bristol does not have a special act giving it the power to enact term limits.
Legal advisers neglected to inform commission members of this back in 2013, when term limits made it to the ballot.
Dealing with the issue has become problematic—term limits passed with overwhelming support, to the tune of 75 percent of voters, who voted on the referendum questions—not all voters choose to—voted in favor of them.
So, what is a commission of volunteers supposed to do, and even more critical, what is the current council supposed to do to remedy the situation, especially in an election year?
The answer? Consult the experts, or the expert, which they did from the start—see the first TBE story on term limits here—in fact, it was the legal expert, who raised the issue at a meeting of Bristol city officials and Hamden city officials who were discussing the Bristol finance board as a model for Hamden to consider.
Commission members who were leaning toward other recommendations, including having voters consider expanding the mayor’s term from two to four years, had little time to absorb this information and decide what action to take.
In a flurry of activity, with the city corporation counsel, legal expert and commission members pressed for time, the commission pulled back on amending the mayor’s term and decided they had little wiggle room aside from recommending that the city put term limits back on the ballot for voters to reverse their position and then allow our state legislators to take up the cause at the Capitol.
Local Republicans, led by the Republican Town Committee chair, who announced he is running for mayor last week, are accusing local Democrats, who hold the mayor’s office and all council seats, of conspiring to overturn term limits, i.e., the will of the people.
As part of their campaign, Republicans have sponsored several protests and distributed signs supporting term limits.
BACK TO THE MEETING
Between his original opinion in March and this meeting in May, Steven G. Mednick, the legal expert on city charters in Connecticut, expanded his thinking in a supplemental letter to the city’s corporation counsel. His letter is available here.
Details follow.
“The focus of my opinion is the sole question of the legal validity or soundness of the provisions under the law of home rule in the State of Connecticut,” Mednick writes in his conclusion. “Again, my view has not changed.
“The purpose of this supplement, in the context of the intervening political arguments is to find a path to correct the current defect in the charter provision.”
Earlier in the letter he reiterates that his opinion did not take a position for or against term limits, but simply to state the law as “it has been consistently adjudicated in Connecticut over the years.”
In fact, he states “the issue should be to decide what is the best and most honest approach to address this legal issue while being respectful of the mandate of the voters of 2013 while at the same time being equally cognizant of the legal advice your Corportation Counsel and I have provided.”
He refers to a hypothetical situation, i.e., the position of Republican protesters, where a judge asked supporters of the provision as it exists in the charter as a result of the 2013 vote to defend their position, “that ‘term limits’ are legal or enforceable in the State of Connecticut,” and responses in so many words, “good luck with that notion.”
“The Charter Revision Commission should be praised for taking the approach it did,” he writes. The Commission took a straightforward approach even though as is the case more and more these days, honesty is very rarely rewarded.
“In fact, on the basis of articles in the press it would be fair to say that the Commissioners, the Mayor and City Council have been excoriated for the intrinsic integrity of the approach recommended by the Commission.”
He suggested two paths forward, the first begin a legislative solution:
“Approach your legislative delegation and ask them to pass a law that would provide Bristol and every other municipality in Connecticut with the ‘express authority’ to limit terms or municipal elected officials by charter under the Home Rule Act.”
A second would involve legal action:
“Since there is no candidate affected by the provision, we find ourselves in a place where all we have are words in the charter. The situation presently does not rise to the level of a real case and controversy for a court to resolve. When that time comes, it will be a costly legal path that could be avoided by the approach recommended by the Commission, which has been met with a wall of opposition.
In light of the opposition, he recommends that the mayor, council and commission pursue the legislative fix, which “is your best case for validating the ‘term limit’ provision.”
He qualifies his thinking this way:
“My opinion has not changed; however, as I have thought about it over the past few weeks after further discussions with you (the letter is to city corporation counsel Dale Clift) I have come around to thinking that asking the Charter Revision Commission to take the most honest approach available, asking the voters to repeal this provision, may have been unrealistic.”
His writes, “placing this item on the ballot will lead to a highly politicized battle of wills as opposed to a reasoned discussion, such as would take place in a court setting.”
In addition, “if the ballot issue fails in the fall then the City would have to fight a second round in the courts at some point.”
As a result, he urges “the City Council to ask the Charter Revision Commission to eliminate the repeal provision from their final report.”
“To place this provision on the ballot would be a distraction from the other issues in their report and from other real issues facing the electorate in November,” he writes.
IN ADDITION
Previously, TBE reported that two Democrats might be term limited. It turns out the two, elected members of the Board of Education Thomas O’Brien and Christopher Wilson, have not reached the limit. The way the provision is worded, members of the board of education who serve two consecutive four-year terms would have to step down for a term before running again.
O’Brien and Wilson have just ended a two-year term, required after a restructuring of the board of education so that terms might be staggered before term limits take effect. Voters approved term limits for board of education members also in 2013.
There are no members of the City Council who would be affected by term limits this year. The mayor would not be term limited this election.
TBE has found that at the time of deliberations leading up to the 2013 vote, Corporation Counsel and its attorneys neglected to look into whether term limits violated state statutes, focusing most of their resources on a question about automatic budgets.
TBE, through FOIA, requested, received and reviewed minutes from the Charter Review Commission meetings for 2012 and 2013, as well as all correspondence between Corporation Counsel and the Charter Revision Commission. Pages upon pages of information regarding the budget issue dominated communications between the commission and Corporation Counsel.
Specifically, in the minutes, there is an occasional reference to term limits. One reference mentions that commission members will be receiving an informational packet from corporation counsel at its Oct. 18, 2012, meeting, but the packet is no longer available since it was delivered by email, and city emails from that time disappeared when the city changed over to a new system, according to Corporation Counsel Dale Clift, who spoke with TBE contributing editor Jack Krampitz. Krampitz filed the two FOIA requests with the city on behalf of TBE.
Both Krampitz, vice chair, and Rit Carter, who volunteer with TBE, are members of the current Charter Revision Commission. Other members of the current commission are Chair Jon Fitzgerald, Roman Czuchta, John Lafreniere, Kimberly Ploszaj and Secretary Laurie Scotti.
Members of the 2013 committee included Fitzgerald, Dan Viens, Ron Ciarcia, Mary Alford, Paul Krolikowski, Donna Hamelin and Richard Maynard. Art Ward was mayor and Edward Krawiecki Jr. was Corporation Counsel.
This year’s commission will now convene to consider the council’s comments and will finalize their draft. The revised draft will come before the council for a final vote, prior to being added to ballot this fall.
Note: Fortier’s wife, Mary, is a Democratic member of the city council and has been since 2013. She serves in the city’s Third District.