Topsham selectmen discuss Thursday whether they want to ask voters to form a charter commission review possible ways to make the town run more effectively.
Topsham voters may decide in coming months whether the town should form a group to consider changes to its charter.
Selectmen voted 4-1 to move forward with the referendum, with the long-term goal of helping the town run better.
The commission would review local government and recommend updates through a new charter, which is a local constitution governing the form and powers of municipal government.
Topsham has a code of ordinances but no charter.
According to Assistant Town Manager Mark Waltz, selectmen have 30 days to choose a date for that referendum, to be scheduled at least 90 days later.
If the town decides it does want to form a charter commission, six members will be elected to the charter commission and three members will be appointed by the selectmen. The group would propose a charter, which would go before voters as another referendum.
“Once the commission is set up they can look at everything and anything and make whatever recommendations they want, and the public can decide if they want to vote in favor or not,” Waltz said.
The town’s code of ordinances requires the town to form a committee to review Topsham’s form of government at least every 10 years. The town’s most recent government review committee recommended the town form a charter commission.
Issues that arose included recalls, budgets, grants and ordinances, government review committee chair Matthew Abbott told selectmen in November 2020. For example, Topsham’s current government is managed by state law which doesn’t allow a selectman to be recalled for a code of conduct violation.
Selectman Roland Tufts said the government review committee should be reviewed by the public given that it has been a number of years since the last review was done. He said a charter commission should be given a chance to work through the issues flagged in the December 2020 government review committee report, “and see what the outcome is once that commission has completed its work.”
Select board Chair David Douglass was the lone opposing vote on forming a charter commission. He said that the government review committee’s report raised many of the same issues addressed by the town’s last charter commission in 2008.
The town voted down the charter proposed by that commission in a 2008 election that would have moved the town to a representative town council form of government.
“I believe they were answered by a rejected referendum,” Douglass said.
One of the arguments raised in favor of a charter commission is that there is a lack of participation at town meetings where budgets, ordinance changes and other major decisions are made.
Douglass said Friday he believes town councils don’t represent the people as well as town meetings, even if Topsham town meetings draw only 100 people.
“I will firmly stand behind 100 people showing up is far greater of an impact than 5 individual people having all of the say,” he said.
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