The i’s have been dotted and the t’s crossed. The final draft of a proposed Home Rule Charter for Concord Township is now ready for public review before a vote to accept or reject it on April 26.
Members of Concord’s Government Study Commission voted on Feb. 11 to approve a final draft of the charter that, if accepted by voters, would change the basic structure of township government.
The commission has been investigating the possibility of a change since November 2014. According to commission Chairman Jim Gray, the process has been smooth, despite the potential for problems.
“The whole process has flowed beautifully,” he said. “When I look at all the things that could have gone wrong, none of that came to fruition. We worked really hard on this, and no individual members got everything they wanted in the charter.”
He said the debates and conversations among the members were “great” and no one got angry with anyone else.
“Nobody walked out. Nobody called anyone names. It was a really good, thoughtful process,” he said. “It was totally collaborative. I don’t think it could have gone any smoother.”
Gray said he expects to hear from people who oppose the change before the election, but so far, he said, he hasn’t heard anything negative. What he thinks will come out is that people don’t really know what’s going on. That is what he hopes to change.
Members of the commission are scheduled to have meetings with residents of Maris Grove and Fox Hill Farms to bring those residents up to speed, and members will also have four public sessions at Rachel Kohl Library in April before the election. Those dates and times are April 3 and 13 at 10 a.m. and April 14 and 18 at 7 p.m.
Gray also said township residents should contact him, or any other member of the commission, with questions or to set up group meetings to go over the charter’s provisions. Residents can get the names and email addresses for the commission members by going here.
A copy will also be available on the township’s website sometime on Tuesday, Feb. 16, and hard copies of the charter will also be mailed to residents in late March.
If voters accept the charter in April, it would become effective on Jan. 1, 2017, and a seven-member Transition Committee would be formed to review the current administrative code to ensure it complies with the charter or propose changes to make it comply.
As previously reported, the most obvious governmental change would be a shift from a five-member board of supervisors to a seven-member township council. Terms of office would also change. Instead of the six-year terms currently held by supervisors, council members would serve four-year terms.
Current members of the Concord Township Board of Supervisors would remain in office, but four council members would be elected in November next year. Two of those four would represent the two additional members of the new governing body while the other two would be for current board seats whose terms expire at the end of 2017.
Additionally, two of those four seats would be for two-year terms and the other two for four-year terms. Commission Vice Chairman Rosemary Fiumara said the candidates would decide among themselves which terms they would seek.
Beginning with the 2019 election, all terms would be for four years and elections would be staggered every two years as they are now. The ensuing elections would see three council members elected in 2019, two members elected in 2021 and then two in 2023, Fiumara said. That cycle would then continually repeat.
All council members will represent the township at-large. There will be no ward representation, as some people had wanted.
Fiumara said the commission had considered a hybrid system in which there would be both at-large and ward representation, but decided that having the two extra council members would make ward representation unnecessary, that having two more people representing a larger area would be better.
She also said that ward representation is becoming less attractive throughout the state, and that many municipalities are moving toward at-large representation only.
Another change would be to do away with having an elected tax collector. A township employee would accept tax payments, either in person or by mail, during township business hours instead. That’s seen as a money-saving move. As stated in the charter’s introduction, money saved by eliminating commissions paid to a tax collector would more than offset the cost of having two more members of the governing body.
Supervisors in townships of the second class currently receive $1,875 per year.
While in office, and for one year after they leave office, council members may not be township employees, nor may they be employed by a contractor doing business with the township.
Similarly, the township manager may not be engaged in any other employment during business hours, nor may the manager hold elective public office or hold other public employment.
A copy of the final draft will go to the township, which will send that to the Delaware County Board of Elections so that the question of whether to approve the charter can be on the April 26 primary ballot, according to commission solicitor Michael Maddren.
(Photo: Jim Gray, chairman of the Concord Township Government Study Commission, signs the final draft of the proposed Home Rule Charter. He is flanked on the left by commission vice chairman Rosemary Fiumara and, on the right, by commission member and secretary Diane Bohr. A question on whether to adopt the charter will go to the voters at the April 26 primary election.)
(5 votes, average: 4.20 out of 5)
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