The newly established Charter Revision Commission (CRC) held their initial public hearing Thursday night, February 3, to get input from the community before they even began to deliberate.

The CRC has 15 months from the time they were established (January 10) to issue a report to the Board of Selectmen (BOS) of recommendations for revisions to put to a town wide vote. At that time, the Selectmen can either approve the recommendations, all or in part, for a referendum or reject them, but the board cannot make any alterations.

The CRC is made up of nine members, no more than five of which belong to any one party and no more than three that served on an elected board or commission. The members include CRC Chairman Larry Miller, Vice Chairman Joni Park, Secretary Dorothy Miles, Greg Dembowski, John Berger, Ron Jaffe, Mark Labadia, David Propper and Peter Scalzo.

First Selectman Bill Davidson spoke before the public comment session to explain why the BOS established the CRC and what he personally hopes they will accomplish.

“Why now?” he offered after pointing out that the town had its last revision commission in 2007 and that the town charter mandates the next commission be formed by 2012. “The motivation was simple: we have a number of pressing issues in town that gave people concern that we felt were important enough that they should be answered sooner than later.”

While the Commission is independent, the BOS has given them a list of eight topics they suggest the CRC take up. Along with that, Davidson added his own vision for the proceedings.

“I think your basic task is simple versus complex,” he said. “The town meeting form of government is as simple as it can be, but the world around us — 16,500 people, state statutes, laws of all types — is very complex. Does the simplicity of our current form of government address the complexity that the resident have to deal with?”

Davidson would like the Commission to focus mainly on the proposal to increase the BOS’s membership from three to five, he explained after the hearing.

Currently, two selectmen of the same party can meet together to talk about town business, however the addition of a third officer of the town, such as the town controller, would constitute an illegal quorum. Likewise, selectmen of different party affiliations cannot meet outside of a scheduled meeting.

“We should strive to move this town toward smaller government with more participation by our citizens,” Chairman of the Brookfield Republican Town Committee (RTC) Martin Flynn said (speaking on his own behalf), suggesting that it was a good idea to consider merging the Planning and Zoning Commissions but warning against increasing the size of the BOS or changing from a town meeting form of government.

“Speaking tonight as the Republican member of the Board of Selectmen,” Selectman Steve O’Reilly said, “I appreciate what Marty Flynn previously said with respect to smaller government and more power to the people…While I appreciate what’s going on here tonight, the topics did come from the First Selectman. While I do not agree with some of the topics that are before you, I was in favor of the formation of the Commission.”

O’Reilly stated that he was in favor of having a split municipal/education budget at the town vote and for mandating advisory questions be attached to each, but that the form of Brookfield’s government should stay the same.

“Brookfield is a great town with a great form of government that works well,” he asserted. “There’s never been any doubt that the people have their say. I admit, being the minority selectman is frustrating at times, but I’ve seen nothing that would compel a change from three to five selectmen.”

Board of Finance (BOF) Chairman Bill Tinsley offered two new departments for the CRC to consider establishing: a Municipal Water Services Authority to join the Water Pollution Control Authority (WPCA), which handles sewers, to manage of all the underground infrastructure in town and an Economic Development Corporation, which has additional statutory powers over an Economic Development Commission (EDC), such as seeking out grants and issuing low-interest loans.

“With respect to the recommendations [from the BOS], it’s clear to me that you don’t like your job,” Tinsley said, addressing Davidson. “Personally, I don’t see any clear advantage to making changes in these areas,” he said of changes to the town meeting sytle of government, “and can quite clearly see a number of disadvantages.”

Betsy McIlvaine, a member of the library board of trustees, asked the CRC to look at the make-up of their board, which has six regular members and three alternates.

“We’d like to simplify that to nine members,” she said on behalf of the board. “Being an alternate limits some of the activities that you can do. We would like all of our nine members of the board participating in governing and moving the library forward."

BOF Vice Chairman Bob Belden seconded previous calls to add advisory questions to the budget vote and also asked that the CRC consider adding alternates to the BOF.

“Most commissions and boards in town have alternates, except three,” the Board of Education (BOE), BOS and BOF. “Two of those are not allowed to have alternates by state statute — the Board of Finance is not one of those boards,” Belden pointed out.

Adding alternates to the BOF would provide them with more members to serve on committees and act as a “training ground” for new members unfamiliar with board protocol.

Lastly, BOF member Jerry Friedrich suggested the CRC “change one letter in one particular area: C2-4,” the section of the charter dealing with the election and make-up of the BOE.

Connecticut towns have the option of following either section 9-204a or 9-204b of the General Statutes, which limits the representative majority on education boards. Brookfield’s charter currently references section 9-204a, limiting the majority party to four of the seven seats on the BOE. Changing to 9-204b would allow up to five members to be of the same political party.

The Commission will hold their next regular meeting on Thursday, February 17, in Town Hall. The public is welcome to attend.