CLINTON

When Clinton voters head to the polls on Election Day, the candidates aren’t the only thing on the ballot. Voters will also be able to vote “yes” or “no” over proposed changes to the Town’s charter. The Harbor News has a rundown of the proposed changes.

In the summer of 2022, the Town Council appointed a new five-person Charter Revision Commission (CRC) to review Clinton’s Town Charter, a document outlining the roles and bylaws for the different boards, commissions, and town departments in Clinton.

The Town Council approved the proposed changes in April, but citizens must vote on them before they go into effect.

A question on the ballot on Election Day asks citizens, “Should the propped revised Town Charter be approved?” with the option to vote “yes” or “no.”

The Proposed Changes

When the CRC was first formed, the council asked the CRC to consider recommended changes such as the ability to hire a town manager for a term of longer than three years, increasing the amount of money the town can appropriate without a referendum, and the cancellation of the required annual town meeting. The CRC also considered other proposed changes that members deemed appropriate. Throughout the fall and winter, three different public hearings were held for the citizens to weigh in on the proposed changes and add suggestions they had.

The most significant change proposed by the CRC is the ability to hire a town manager for a term not to exceed five years instead of the current three-year maximum.

A second substantial change would increase the amount of money the town can appropriate without a referendum to $700,000 from the current $300,000.

Other proposed changes would allow the town manager to hire, dismiss, and advertise for town employees without the approval of the Town Council first.

Further proposed changes to the charter would remove the requirement for the Town Council to appoint a search committee to fill the vacancies in town departments. The town manager would then be able to appoint or hire people for the roles. The changes would also cancel the annual town meeting held each January, where boards and commissions give updates on the previous year’s actions.

The final proposed charter was filed with the town clerk in March, which left it up to the council to either approve or reject the entire proposed document. At a meeting in April, all council members voted to approve the proposed changes except for Carrie Allen. Allen said she was “very opposed” to the amount of money the town would be able to appropriate without going to a referendum under the proposed charter.

The last time the town appointed a CRC was in 2018, when a major charter revision was proposed that changed the form of government from the Board of Selectman model to the current Town Manager-Town Council model. Citizens approved the proposed change in November 2018, and the new government went into effect in November 2019.

The current charter requires the town to appoint a CRC to review the document no less than every five years, but given the large change in government structure that the town underwent in 2019, it was suggested by other towns’ town managers that Clinton appoint a new CRC sooner than that to work out any issues that council members may have noticed.