Charter Advisory Committee meeting last night

[djdreilinger.livejournal.com]

Somerville-wide, not just Davis, but: did anyone go to this? I'm curious about what transpired and don't want to wait a... gasp... FULL DAY to get information from the city.

Comments

[miss-chance.livejournal.com]

My neighbor went. The only thing she told me was that the condominium that was just built on the bike path at Willow and Morrison is going to plant a row of trees obscuring the gas and electric meters. Not much for news.

There presumably was something else talked about, but that's all she mentioned.

[ron_newman]

That was a different meeting, I believe.

[djdreilinger.livejournal.com]

Ah, meetings. I'm talking about this one:

SOMERVILLE – The City of Somerville’s Charter Advisory Committee (CAC) today announced the date of a public hearing to discuss the City’s municipal charter and the work of the CAC over the last several months. The hearing will be held on Monday, November 10th at 7pm in the Aldermanic Chambers in City Hall, 93 Highland Avenue.

[miss-chance.livejournal.com]

that makes more sense. I was trying to figure out what trees on the bike-path had to do with "charter advisory." oops. my bad.

[ron_newman]

Here's the Somerville News story on the meeting. There should also soon be a report at Somerville Voices.

[masswich.livejournal.com]

I was there- a list of preliminary recommendations was distributed that included creating a system for financial management, creation of a "Chief Administrative Officer", a 4 year term for the Mayor with some sort of recall provision, and adding appointed members to the School Committee.

The public comments were mostly in opposition to the appointed members being added to the School Committee, with some other concerns about a 4 year term for the Mayor (although some people said they thought a longer term would make sense since its hard to get anything done in 2 years.) There was also talk about Instant Runoff Voting and going to a City Manager system.

It sounds like the group is still meeting and will have another public hearing near New Year's. There is a lot of stuff on their work on the City's web site.

[djdreilinger.livejournal.com]

Thanks—I figured there were many meetings still to come on this initiative so I could afford to miss that one!