Last night the City Council voted to expand the size of the City Council from 24 to 36. David Olsen, Newton’s City Clerk, says the next step is that his office will file a “home rule petition” with the state legislature which he expects can get approved in time for our next municipal election.
Said Council President Marc Laredo “we already have the biggest Council in the state, but we can do better. We are blessed in Newton with a huge Council chamber. That beautiful municipal space is being under utilized and we are confident that we can cram more desks in there without sacrificing the comfort of our existing Councilors.
Disclaimer: This was one of our many April Fools stories for 2019
Even though I knew this was a gag, it was still funny.
Wow, what’s next? Maybe revoting elections when the Council doesn’t like the outcome?
In other news, a petition has already been filed for City Council to expanded further from 36 to 88,994 members.
Oprah Winfrey was quoted stating to residents of Newton: “you get to be Councilor, you get to be Councilor, you get to be Councilor — we _all_ get to be Councilors!”
“Ich bin ein ratsmitglieder!”
Just establish area councils in all 13 villages and be done with it.
too funny
Glad to hear they’re expanding the number of Councilors and not force feeding the ones we already have!
I appreciate all of the April fools headlines, but in this era of fake news, let’s hope that they’re not misunderstood as true.
Unfortunately, we all fools for voting down modernization of the City Charter. I wished that referendum was an April Fools Joke. While it would be hilarious to have a council with 36 members, it is not funny to watch our council of 24 labor through daily decision-making. I am hoping that the Newton City Council will do some self-analysis and reduce the number of its members to 16 as many anti-charter city counselors suggested during the Charter debate.
@Ted – That is certainly our intent … at least for a day.
Now that, alas, our annual day of foolishness has passed, we’ve added a disclaimer to each of the April Fools stories so that future historians will not be misled about the state of affairs in Newton 2019 – i.e Purple Boards and Hot Skates are not yet roving our streets.
Awww. Too bad. I brought my glove to work today hoping to catch a foul ball at the Newsox stadium.