Some pesky health problems this winter have gotten in the way of my writing as of late, but I wanted to take a few minutes to update you on an issue I’ve been following here since this past fall: the proposed changes to the Southbridge Home Rule Charter. (See here for what I’ve written previously on the issue.)
Guess what? The bill so many of us love to hate, H.3900 (“An Act relative to the charter of the Town of Southbridge”), is finally headed for its hearing in front of the Joint Committee on Municipalities and Regional Government this coming Wednesday, February 29th, at 11 a.m.
For those of you who aren’t familiar with this piece of legislation, it’s the result of the Southbridge Town Council’s rather fantastically ridiculous meeting of October 3, 2011 in which they chose to address the recommendations of the Charter Review Committee by adopting some things, ignoring others, changing some things entirely, and throwing one or two other random provisions just for the fun of it, I suppose.
What we ended up with at the end of the meeting was a set of proposed charter changes that overall served to strengthen the Town Manager position and, inexplicably, restrict ballot access for Town residents seeking to be candidates in local elections. The Charter language relating to the Board of Health was further played around with at a subsequent meeting on October 24, after Councilor Regis claimed to have received “dozens and dozens” of constituent calls from people who were opposed to an elected Board of Health.
The former members of the Charter Review Committee themselves had publicly taken issue with this special legislation and I know that there are others in town who had some pretty significant problems with it as well. I don’t know when this upcoming hearing on Wednesday was posted, but it’s something I’ve had my eye on. Does anyone in town feel like taking a field trip?
