BACKGROUND AND DOCUMENTS

Background on 2025 Charter Revision

The Town Charter is Fairfield’s Constitution. Nothing is more important than how we govern ourselves.

Per State statute, The Board of Selectmen (BOS) and the Charter Revision Commission (CRC) the Board appoints, are given the authority to propose and put before the voters recommended changes to our Town Charter.   The voters are the ones who will decide at the ballot box whether the changes are approved .

The 2024-2025 Charter Revision Commission made its final recommendations to the Board of Selectmen in July. The Board of Selectmen voted on what changes to move forward on August 6 and on what questions to place on the ballot on August 20. Some of the more controversial changes, that Fairfielders for Good Government would have opposed, were not moved forward by the Board of Selectmen.

There are many changes that are not spelled out as individual ballot questions i.e., are combined in one question, Question 7 (the omnibus question). Fairfielders for Good Government encourages voters to familiarize themselves with those forty or so changes as well as the individual questions.

Ballot Questions

Below is a list of the seven ballot questions approved by the Board of Selectmen. The final/seventh question is an omnibus question and includes approximately 45 changes that are not individual questions. Fairfielders for Good Government encourages voters to familiarize themselves with the changes that are in this omnibus question before deciding how to vote on question #7:

Redline Version

The following is the Redline Version of the revised charter:

Clean Version

The following is a clean version of the revised Charter as recommended by the Board of Selectmen: