City Charter Commission Requests Public Input

Members of the Woonsocket City Charter Review Commission met for the first time in an empty conference room at City Hall yesterday.  Their short meeting focused on ways to get the public involved in the process and the logistics of their meetings.

The commission plans to meet on the second and fourth Tuesday of every month until June, when they will submit their charter revisions to the City Council for approval.  The City Council will then review the commission’s plan and submit revisions to the charter to the General Assembly by August so they can place the revisions on the ballot for the voters to approve.

In addition to the bi-weekly formal meetings, the commission also agreed to hold public forums at locations outside of City Hall once a month to bring additional input from community members.

Mayor Leo Fontaine said that he was excited about the opportunity to have this forum to make changes to the charter.

“This is a very important process,” he said, “This is what change is all about, trying to bring the guiding document of our city up to modern times.  We can look at things differently and having the ability to do that as a formal process is an exciting challenge.”

A provision in the Charter states that a review commission, appointed by the mayor, is to be formed once every ten years to update the document.  The last charter review took place in 1999.

While the meeting largely focused on logistics, a few possible changes were discussed.  City Councilman Bill Schneck suggested that there be one finance department that will cover the schools and the city.  Dealing with the two different departments has been a struggle during Woonsocket’s . Another change may be moving city elections to even number years to benefit from increased voter turnout during state and national elections.

Over the course of the next few months, many more changes will be suggested and discussed and the commission is asking that the public come out to make their recommendations.

The commission is chaired by former state rep. Christopher Fierro and made up of Council President John Ward, Councilman William Schneck, School Committee member Vimala Phongsavanh, and community members Sally M. Anthony, Allen Auclair, Joseph D. Barroso, N. David Bouley, John R. Dionne, Rene M. Lafayette and Kathryn Leblanc.  

A copy of the city charter can be found here.