That’s according to this tweet from Andreae Downs. I hope some of the Newton League members will provide more details in the comments section.
@NewtonMAPatch @AshleyStudley lwvn just voted to collect signatures to open the #Newton city charter
— andreae downs (@AndreaeDowns) May 31, 2012
This is a good sign of the public political activity. Newton City Chapter should be revised, because it contains some obsolete principals politically counterproductive in today’s reality.
For example, please see the excerpt from Charter of the Massachusetts Bay (1629):
“… there shalbe one Governor, one Deputy Governor, and eighteene Assistants of the same Company, to be from tyme to tyme constituted, elected and chosen out of the Freemen of the saide Company, for the twyme being, in such Manner and Forme as hereafter in theis Presents is expressed, …”
http://www.animatedatlas.com/ecolonies/ecoloniessourceframe.html
Freeman concept appeared in about 12 century.
The settlers upon arriving to Massachusetts were the common. Only few of them later (after been sworn for loyalty to Governor and those elected) became the freemen – John Winthrop hardened the freeman requirement, in order to keep control over Massachusetts Bay Company in hands of the few.
Later, the freeman concept has been transformed into the British traditional national principle “elected by and from voters”, which may be seen in Newton City Chapter, Sec. 3-1: “There should be a Mayor, elected by and from voters“, which does not correspond to the U.S. National principle “elected from citizens”.
I was there as well. Rhanna Kidwell made a very compelling argument in favor of a charter commission. Very exciting turn of events. I went there not knowing that this was on the agenda. Kudos to the lwvn.
It seems like a curious announcement, sort of like collecting signatures for a constitutional amendment but not mentioning what issue the amendment will address. Are there specific details in the charter that the LWFN are looking to change and they just didn’t make it into the Tweet.
One of their major issues for years was to cut the size of the board of alderman. They recently did a study and added a couple of other issues to that, not sure what those are since I had nothing to do with the study. They also catalyzed the last charter reform in 1971, so it’s within their purview.
A comment has been removed here at the author’s request. I also removed a followup comment directed at that person.
Greg, Why? I read the comments and they were fine.
One of re’s questions, I believe, is why the lwv hasn’t tried to change the charter since 1969, right? I want to throw my 2 cents here. Re, the charter commission is governed by state law and the state makes it very difficult to change the charter on purpose so cities/people can’t change the charter at their whim. It takes a signature drive of 15% of the electorate. According to the lwv’s numbers there are 56,000 registered voters so we need 8,400 signatures to put this on the ballot.
Here’s the process:The citizens(lwv) have to go out and gather 8,400 signatures. The question of whether a city wants a charter commission goes on the next city election ballot. In other words, the question gets placed on the ballot of an odd year (2013 is the next odd year) ballot. In porder to make the 2013 deadline, the signatures have to be turned into the elections dept to be certified by July 2013. On te 2013 ballot, two things will occur 1. A question whether people want charter commission to look at the charter and 2. An election of people who want to be on the commission. If mempory serves, there ware 9 people elected to the commission. In that ballot 2 things can occur: 1 either the people refuse the idea of charter commission, in which case the election for the commission is pointless or the people vote in favor of the commission and the top 9 vote getters get to be on the commission. Anyone, can run for the charter commission, regardless of experience as long as he/she is a newton resident over 18 years old. I hope this answers any questions. Oh yea, there are roughly 2,000 certified signatures on file now so the movement needs roughly 6400 signatures instead of 8400.
@Tom: You’d have to ask the author. I don’t do that often but it was a first time commenter and I didn’t want to discourage that person from commenting in the future.
@Tom, I requested Greg remove my remarks. Since I was one of the League charter study co-chairs, I would naturally be perceived as speaking for the LWVN, which I wasn’t. As a League member, you know that the organization is fairly rigid and process oriented, which is appropriate for the kind of work we do. I do not want to undermine the charter commission effort by speaking out of turn.
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