The Charter Revision Commission will finalize the draft of its recommendations of items to be considered on this year’s ballot at a special meeting on Wednesday, Aug. 3, 7 p.m. at the Bristol Public Library. The final report will be presented for a vote at the August City Council meeting.

Among the agenda items will be a public hearing and discussion about the removal of the commission’s recommendation expanding the city council from two to three members per council district and increasing the membership of the Board of Finance from eight to 11 members.

The city council expansion would have ensured minority representation. The current city council is comprised of Republicans. The previous city council was comprised of Democrats.

The special meeting follows a set procedure, with the latest step being a joint meeting of commission and city council members on July 28 to formally discuss the City Council’s decision to reject the proposal. That meeting did not require a quorum. The conversation revolved around the city council’s reasoning for rejecting the recommendation: generally, because the provision would increase the size of government.

Those present were commission members, Calvin Brown, Michele Roalf, Dan Micari, commission chair Jon Fitzgerald and Mayor Jeffrey Caggiano. 

Prior to this, at a special meeting of the city council and Charter Revision Commission on July 26, the city council voted to reject the proposal increasing the size of the city council ensuring multiparty representation as well as the size of the Board of Finance, while accepting four other proposals.

These proposals include the following:

• to increase the term of Office of Mayor from two to four years,
• expand the type of punishable misconduct by elected and appointed officials and the penalties for misconduct,
• changing the process for determining City Council Districts from provisions in the charter to the responsibility of the Registrars of Voters, and
• making various technical changes to the Charter, for instance to provide consistency in capitalization and terminology.

For a link to the meeting agenda, click here. The meeting is available virtually by clicking here.

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