The Board of Selectmen (BOS) is moving forward with a new Charter Review Commission, laying out a tentative timeline that would send a potential referendum to voters in late 2021 at the earliest, though more likely it will be pushed back to sometime in 2022.

Making changes to the charter is a process that is governed relatively tightly by state statute. Multiple public hearings and notices are required on a stringent timeline, and the makeup of the commission is also governed by state law.

First Selectman Peggy Lyons laid out two scenarios, one that would allow a potential referendum question in November 2021 and give the commission 10 weeks to carry out its work, and another that aims for a more relaxed 35 weeks and wouldn’t get a question before voters until 2022.

“There’s no rush to do this,” Lyons said. “I think we all want to do it, get it done right, and be thoughtful.”

Lyons said she was still cognizant that some residents would like to see the process happen sooner rather than later.

A charge for a charter review commission was approved by former first selectman Tom Banisch more than a year ago. No members were ever appointed to that body, and when Lyons won the election in November of last year, she re-imagined the charter review as a two-part process, allowing a more informal group, the Ad Hoc Government Study Committee, to look more specifically at Madison’s fundamental government structure before the standard, structured review began.

That committee originally was meant to finish its work in May, but was disrupted by the pandemic and struggled to reach a consensus. It recently presented its final report to the BOS, offering a number of suggestions for changes including lengthening selectmen terms and tweaking town meeting requirements without endorsing any one course of action over another.

For the most part, the BOS seemed more inclined to allow a longer process, though Lyons said the more aggressive timeline is doable.

“I think trying to rush it through with all the vagaries of getting together, not getting together, people trying to participate electronically is just too much for us to get a true pulse of what the community wants,” Selectman Bruce Wilson said.

“I don’t think we will get a good product and I don’t think the public will be comforted by a process that looks like it is being catalyzed too quickly,” Selectman Al Goldberg said.

Though the state doesn’t allow the BOS or any other body to restrict or force a charter review commission to look at any single area or issue in the charter, a recommendation can be provided in the charge that the BOS writes. Lyons and other members said they were open to that, with specifics likely to come from the Government Study Committee report.

According to the timeline reviewed at the BOS meeting this week, a charge would be approved on Monday, Oct. 26, with members appointed at the next BOS meeting on Monday, Nov. 9. An initial public hearing would then have to be held in December “before any substantive work” by the committee.