What's a Charter Commission? Should Lancaster commission one?

Last night a Select Board member posted on social media about his initiative to petition for a town Charter Commission: nearly everything he wrote about a Town Charter was incorrect.  Just a month earlier that same member did everything in his power to prevent residents from voting on expanding the Select Board.   What's the story?

 

First, the "Facebook Post."

Here's the post that Select Board member Jason Allison posted at 9PM on Sunday:

        

Allison wrote that "this will finally allow us to evaluate our form of government, for the first time ever."  Right off the bat, this is not true.   You may remember that just two years ago you voted at Annual Town Meeting to establish a "Government Study Committee."  I was on that committee for two years, and we did review our town's form of government.

There are a handful of "Form of Government" options available to municipalities in Massachusetts.  Because we have fewer than 12,000 residents, the only option that Massachusetts law allows us is a Select Board with a Town Meeting.  Of the 351 municipalities in Massachusetts, 292 use the "Select Board - Town Meeting" form of government.

        
        (Source:  Massachusetts Municipal Association)

 We do meet the population threshold (6000) to switch to a "Representative Town Meeting," to replace our current "Open Town Meeting."   Rather than attending our town meeting in person, you'd elect a large panel of residents who'd attend on your behalf. 

The Government Study Committee polled about "Open Town Meeting" in fall 2023; most respondents were content with an "Open Town Meeting" but there did seem to be an audience interested in something else. 

             

            (Source:  Lancaster Government Study Committee, 2023 Fall Survey) 

That is the entirety of the "Form of Government" choices available to Lancaster --there are not too many options.  

What's more, if Lancaster would like to switch to a "Representative Town Meeting," we don't even need a charter to make that change.  (And maybe it would evenbe better to tackle a controversial decision outside of the charter process.)

A number of people subsequently asked questions under Allison's Facebook post, and the responses from Allison were consistently off-the-mark:

        

Allison wrote: "Our current form of government has appointments for roles like 'checker of the bark' which hasn't been appointed since 18 something."

No idea about the "bark checker" he's referring to, but there are a number appointments that Lancaster makes every year to fill roles that state law requires in each municipality.   The roles are assigned various responsibilities by the state.    That would not change: if we adopted a charter, we'd still have those roles to fill.

The "provision for door-to-door fish peddling" is an example of a bylaw; we'd still have bylaws if we adopted a charter.  What's more, we don't need a charter to amend these "old bylaws."  We already amended away the fish-peddler text at Town Meeting earlier this month. 

Harvard is a good example of a town that adopted a charter; you can read it's charter online along with their bylaws and procedures maintained in addition to the charter.

        "ecode360.com" for Harvard, Massachusetts.

If Lancaster adopted a charter, it would be the same for us: the town's charter would take on laying out the town's various boards and committees, but would not fully replace our bylaws.   You would not want to put "everything in the charter" even if you could:  amendments to general bylaws require a majority vote at town meeting, while state law requires a super-majority vote to amend an adopted home rule charter.  (MGL Chapter 43B Section 10)    Other things like "Stormwater Policies and Procedures" are required and  have legal weight, but are maintained and updated by individual town boards, and they will always exist in addition to the charter.

            

This was a discussion about "Perambulating the Bounds", an ancient statutory requirement placed by the state on all the municipalities in Massachusetts.  It's a practice that goes back to 1651 or earlier.   Every five years, every town is required to send people out into the woods to find the ancient stone markers that mark the corners of the town.  (MGL Chapter 42 Section 2)

This is also a good example of something that adopting a Charter cannot change.   Adopting a charter won't allow the town to offload anything the state requires of it.



Why should Lancaster adopt a charter?  Should it not?

The Government Study Committee did discuss a town charter, and responded back that we didn't find a compelling reason to recommend one or recommend against one.   I'm fairly proud of that answer because I think it acknowledges that while moving the furniture around is exciting, you can certainly come out at the end with nothing to show for it.    Frankly we didn't identify anything that the town needed a charter to achieve.

If we do approve a Charter Commission, nine elected volunteers would work for eighteen months to formulate a Charter.  That's a sizable commitment of volunteer resources, and approval of the resulting charter is not guaranteed -- many commissions do see their charters voted down at town meeting.

Would a proposed charter pass in Lancaster?

For what its worth, the Government Study Committee did make recommendations to the Select Board for the town to consider at Town Meeting this year.

- Consider expanding the Select Board to five members.
- Consider a bylaw change to forbid non-residents serving on town boards and committees
- Consider a bylaw establishing a permanent Government Study committee.

We presented those options to the Select Board in March; they discussed them briefly and declined to place them on the warrant.

The proposal to "Expand the Select Board" had been well received in our fall survey, and we brought it to Town Meeting with a Citizen's Petition.   It was approved.