Northampton City Council discusses Charter Review ordinances

July 19, 2021 | Dennis Hackett
dhackett@thereminder.com

The Northampton City Council meets for a Zoom meeting.
Screen capture by Dennis Hackett

NORTHAMPTON – During the Northampton City Council’s July 15 meeting, the council discussed studying ordinances including the frequency the city reviews its charter and the balance of power between the mayor and the city council.

To start the discussion, councilor at-large Bill Dwight said the main argument for reviewing the charter more frequently is the notion that the mayor’s office has a disproportionate authority compared to the City Council and other positions.

“I think the thrust of this argument is what is perceived to be the disproportionate authority granted to the executive position, ‘Under strong mayor we council,’ structure,” he said.

Dwight added that he was unsure if this was an issue that could be addressed through an ordinance or the charter review process, but City Solicitor Alan Seewald said it was possible to introduce it as an ordinance.

“Under the charter ordinances are reviewed every five years and the charter itself is reviewed every 10 years. The way that is structured is by passing an ordinance, so we have ordinances for both charter review and ordinance review,” he said.

Stan Moulton, the Ward 1 representative for the Charter Review Commission, said it could be tricky to review the charter more frequently because it is already a multi-year process.

“A thorough review of the charter is a fairly time-consuming process. It took our committee 11 months and 19 meetings to gather information and hear testimony. The City Council then hosted further meetings and the recommendations have gone to the legislation for hearings, and the legislation has yet to act on it,” he said.

As a member of the committee that worked on the city’s newer charter in 2011, Dwight said the committee decided on 10 years because it allowed the Charter Review Commission to conduct a thorough review.

“As I recall what came up was that 10 years gave enough time for deep dives and due diligence for a thorough review. More frequently would not prove fruitful, at least to the understanding of the people who proposed the original change to the charter,” he said.

Council Vice President Jim Nash, a member of the council’s Special Committee for the Review of Ordinances, said committee member Megan Paik wanted to trigger the discussion about the mayor’s power through an ordinance.

“It does keep coming up, we hear it all the time in public comment, whether it is about trees, police or downtown how decisions are made. I think breaking this apart from the charter review is probably a good idea because at its heart, member Paik was really interested in the ‘Strong mayor, weak council’ and wanted to trigger that mechanism so we could have the discussion sooner,” he said.

Ward 6 Councilor Marianne LaBarge said she was in favor of reviewing the balance of power between the City Council and the mayor especially when there are concerns over process in the city with situations such as a paving project on Warfield Place.

“We are limited on what we can do, the mayor is the one who has the power. I think this is something we really need to look at in a further study, I think there really needs to be some control here when we have people on Warfield now as an example, we cannot say we are going to do something, it is the power of the mayor and we cannot put a halt on it,” she said.

Ultimately, the council did not act on the ordinance but may bring it up as a future resolution to establish a committee to conduct further investigation on both issues.

During the public comment portion of the meeting, residents of Warfield Place voiced the continued concern over a paving project on the street which includes tearing down seven cherry trees that residents want to preserve.

The City Council next meets on Aug. 20.

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