AUBURN – Councilors are preparing to soon deal with some weighty issues.

Mayor Norm Guay wants to begin the process of establishing a charter commission to review what in essence is Auburn’s constitution.

He said Thursday that he’ll advocate that the council begin discussion of the charter process within the next week or two. He wants to see a question on the November ballot asking city voters if they approve of a charter study. Candidates to serve on the commission would also see their names appear on the same ballot, Guay said.

“We could have a situation where voters reject the commission proposal but elect a commission” as a result, he noted.

Guay said that scenario is unlikely, though.

He expects people will agree with the need for a charter review.

“The last time we undertook a charter review was in 1990,” Guay said. “Things change over time.”

Councilors, he said, will “review the dos and the don’ts” of the process “and decide whether we go forward.” Guay added that preliminary discussions with council members indicated support for the charter review.

Typically that would be a year-long process. If voters say to proceed with it in November and elect a commission, which would be augmented by three appointed members, the review would begin. It would include meetings, public hearings, development of a proposed charter and another vote a year from November to accept or reject the update. If it’s rejected, the existing charter would remain in force.

Talk of changing the charter began circulating last year after councilors rejected a bid by 1,631 petitioners who wanted to require prior voter approval of borrowing by the city. They refused to put the matter on the November ballot, maintaining that to do so could in itself result in changing the charter.

Councilor Bob Mennealy, who won his at-large seat in that election, was a leading advocate for the public approval of bond issues. He called it a “another check in a system of checks and balances.”

At the time he said he was skeptical of convening a charter commission, calling it “a smoke screen” intended to placate voters in the wake of the bonding petition’s rejection.

He also said that he didn’t believe the charter needed significant change, “Although putting term limits on the mayor and City Council might not be a bad idea.”

Mennealy said Wednesday he stands by much of that. He also said a charter change done for the right reasons might be a worthy undertaking.

“It depends,” he said. “Who are they putting first? Is this for the people, or for their own benefit?”‘ he asked of commission advocates.

He also said he’d push for a provision in any new charter that calls for public approval of municipal borrowing.

Finnigan also told councilors meeting this past Monday that it’s time to review municipal ordinances.

“Many sections of the ordinances are archaic and no longer address the needs of the community,” she noted in a memo that was intended to guide workshop discussion. No workshop was held, however, and Guay didn’t attend the Monday meeting.

The charter and ordinance review process is planned to start in August, Finnigan said.

She also told councilors that she’s trying to set up a workshop session for them with the city’s law firm so that councilors can get a primer on the state’s Right-to-Know laws. She said that effort was under way prior to a Sun Journal protest lodged two weeks ago over the way the council staged its so-called executive meetings, closed door sessions where officials discuss the public’s business in secret.

dfletcher@sunjournal.com

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