Fairfield Board Of Selectmen Begins Discussing Charter Revision

FAIRFIELD, CT — Whether Fairfield should reduce the Representative Town Meeting from its current 40 members to 30 was one of the items discussed by the Board of Selectmen Monday, but judging from its reception from some board members, the suggestion may not have much support.

The board discussed the matter during the first of two public hearings this week on recommendations from the Charter Revision Commission, which wrapped up nine months of work earlier this month.

Commissioners looked at ways of streamlining and updating the Town Charter, which had not been updated in over a decade and a half.

The proposed reduction of the RTM, which has already received some criticism from residents, is one of the key recommendations, but Selectwoman Nancy Lefkowitz said she would not support such a measure.

"If you want to have a robust committee structure, the fastest way to not have that is to reduce the size of the RTM," she said, adding that she also took issue with the commission's suggestion of cutting out town legal notices in newspapers.

"One of my biggest concerns is that not a lot of people know this is going on," Lefkowitz said of the whole Charter Revision process, and newspaper legal notices might have helped to publicize it.

The Board of Selectmen will hold the second public hearing on the commission's recommendations on Wednesday, with the selectmen beginning discussions at 4 p.m. and the public offering comment beginning at 5:30 p.m.

Click here for the agenda, and click here for the backup materials, which includes the presentation on the commission's recommended changes. The hearing will be held in the first floor Conference Room in Independence Hall at the Town Hall complex, and also will be streamed on Webex.

Bryan Cafferelli, who chaired the Charter Revision Commission, said that while Greenwich and Darien had RTMs that are larger than Fairfield's (Greenwich has more than 225 RTM members, for example), Fairfield is "an outlier in terms of the size of its legislative body compared to its population."

"We were trying to look at ways of making the government more efficient and accountable, and the overall consensus was that a smaller legislative body would be more accountable," Cafferelli said.

The key proposed changes to the Town Charter, from the commission's presentation, are as follows:

• RTM size reduced to 30 members.
• Budget process streamlined to include shared budget meetings and improved efficiency and effectiveness.
• Board of Education terms altered to improve competitiveness in certain election cycles.
• Charter provides provisions for Town Administrator.
• Rules of Order and Civility were added.
• No change to Governance Structure for the Town.
• Many individual changes to improve accountability and streamline the Charter for consistency, readability and usefulness.

If the Board of Selectmen votes on Wednesday to send some or all of the recommendations to an election, which could happen as early as this fall.

The board could also reject the recommendations, seek more input and discussion, or send them back to the commission for more analysis.