Letter To The Editor: Fairfield Charter Revision Is Too Controversial

To the Editor:

Our Town Charter is our Constitution. It describes the way our town operates. Our 2006 Charter is now under revision. Unfortunately, some of the decisions made to date are unnecessary, and controversial, if not totally unacceptable. Controversy is not good if the Charter Revision Commission (CRC) hopes to get their changes approved in November.

The make-up of the CRC, appointed by the Board of Selectmen, has been under scrutiny since Day One. Three of the members are from the Strategic Plan Committee (SPC) and appear to vote in unison. Three other CRC members previously served on the Representative Town Meeting (RTM), the Town’s legislative body; a fourth is a current RTM member. The RTM has recently been right-sized to forty representatives who serve over 40,000 registered voters in our town of over 60,000 residents. Now the CRC wants to make it even smaller? Why? What do the current RTM members think about down-sizing? It seem to work quite well as it is.

One of the proposals is to state in the Charter that the RTM redistricting committee should retain ten RTM voting districts with three representatives each. The proposed language contradicts Sec. 9 – 169 (Voting Districts) of the state statutes. The statutes take precedence over the Charter; language to the contrary should be avoided.

Another CRC proposal suggests adding minority party representation to the RTM. This is not only undemocratic, but is contrary to the long-standing tradition that those elected to represent the people have received the highest number of votes. To allow minority representation is to disenfranchise a large number of citizens the right to choose their own representatives.

Only one of CRC members is currently serving on the Board of Finance (BOF), and yet many hours of discussion have focused on streamlining the budget hearing process. Why not just leave it to the BOF and the administration to figure it out?

A final public in-person hearing will be scheduled soon. It is not too late to contact the CRC with your concerns at CRC@fairfieldct.org, or to attend the public meeting and let your voice be heard.

Judy Ewing
Fairfield, CT