By Scott Taylor,Staff Writer

AUBURN – A few hearty souls helped Auburn charter commissioners wrap up the information-gathering phase of their work Thursday night.

Charter Commission Chairman John Cleveland said commissioners would meet March 21 to start drafting a new city charter.

Thursday they hosted a public session to listen to ideas for changes. Seven people attended that meeting, and only three spoke.

Jim McPhee of 72 Hillcrest St. sent his recommendations to Cleveland in an 11-page memo before the meeting.

“Overall, the charter is confusing,” McPhee said. He urged commissioners to clean up language from article to article, making sure the charter uses uniform language. He identified instances of outdated language and suggested including a list of regularly used definitions at the front.

He also argued against requiring a supermajority of five council members to pass certain items, such as bonds and debt.

“I think that gets away from democracy,” McPhee said. “When citizens see the majority of councilors vote for something, 4-3, and it still fails, I think that’s confusing.”

Charles MacDonald of 400 Fletcher Road suggested all city boards and committees should meet at least once per year. He pointed to the trouble the city had last year convening its Ethics Committee.

“They couldn’t get the people together to meet, and it made the city look kind of silly,” MacDonald said. “Here was a group that had been around for a number of years, but they’d never met.”

Dan Herrick of 470 Hatch Road argued against the City Council practice of rushing some ordinance changes through when two votes at two different meetings are normally required. Councilors can skirt that requirement under current rules, and Herrick said he wants it to stop.

“I’ve seen them vote on something once then vote again without most people even realizing what they’d done,” Herrick said. “It came and went before the public even knew what was going on.”

Vacancy

Commissioners also considered their options for replacing David E. Adams, who was elected last fall. Adams died last week after a head-on crash on Route 26 in Oxford.

Cleveland suggested that commissioners recommend possible replacements, and said they would expect to vote on the new member at the March 21 meeting. Then the commission went behind closed doors into an executive session to discuss names.

“I’d hate for people to wake up tomorrow morning and find their name on a list in the newspaper, when we haven’t even talked to them yet,” Cleveland said. “I might get a few angry phone calls.”