QUESTION 7

Explanatory Text (from Town Clerk)

Approval of Question 7 would accept the remainder of the proposed Charter changes in their entirety, comprised of organizational, nonsubstantive, substantive, technical and administrative changes. These changes include, but are not limited to, modernization of language, updates to statutory references, gender neutral references, enhanced ethics reporting, clarification of certain board, commission and officer duties and terms, standardization of certain appointments and functions, and other matters included in the Final Report as approved by the Board of Selectmen.

Current and Proposed Language

Consult the redline version of the document for current and proposed language. Not all of the recommended changes in the Final Report were accepted by the Board of Selectmen on August 6th so the Final Report is not an accurate list of the rest of the changes that are included in Question 7.  For example, the Final Report states that the ten annual meeting requirement for all boards and commissions will be removed.  That change was not approved by the Board of Selectmen and is not included in the omnibus question.

However, there are still over 40 changes included in this omnibus question.  Some of the more significant changes include:

• Eliminating the elector (residency) requirements for the Fire Chief and the Police Chief and requiring them to reside within 35 miles of Fairfield (3.1.A)

• Eliminating the elector (residency) requirement for the Town Attorney and any Assistant Town Attorneys (3.1.A)

• Eliminating the requirement that the DPW Director be a professional licensed engineer; instead requiring the Director assign a licensed professional Town Engineer to be the chief technical advisor for the Town (9.7.A and 9.7.B.3)

• Changing the name of the Board of Selectmen to Board of Selectpersons and Selectman to Selectperson

• Adding a Chief of Staff position appointed by and responsible solely to the First Selectperson (6.2.D)

• Raising the amount and duration threshold on contracts requiring Board of Selectmen approval from one month or more or $10,000 or more to more than one year or more than $50,000. (6.1.C.1)

• Requiring that a town employee be identified as a liaison for each board and commission (10.1.D)

• Removing administrative and operational duties for the sewerage system and the sewer maps and records from the Department of Public Works. This includes removing responsibility for construction, reconstruction, care, maintenance, operation, altering, paving, repairing, draining, cleaning, snow clearance, lighting, inspection and record keeping (10.8.A and 10.8.E)

• Requiring the First Selectman to prepare and maintain a ten (10) year capital plan. This includes presenting it annually to the Board of Selectmen for review and submitting it to the Board of Finance for approval for the next fiscal year (6.2.A.8)

• Removing surety bond requirements (5.3 in current Charter)

• Requiring the charter review process to occur every ten years (14.4.B)

• Changing the reporting structure for the internal auditor from reporting solely to the Fiscal Officer to reporting to the Fiscal Officer on administrative matters, to the Board of Finance on audit matters, and to both the Director of Human Resources and the Board of Finance for any audit matters involving the Fiscal Officer. (9.16.B.3,4,&5)

• Adding a method of communication (e.g., an ethics hotline) for the reporting possible ethics violations. All reports are to go to both the Director of Human Resources and the Chair of the Ethics Commission (10.14.F)

• Changing the term length of the Board of Library Trustees from six years to three years with possibility of reappointment to a second full term

• Changing Golf Commission reappointment process to allow members to be appointed to a second consecutive five-year term. In the current charter, members must wait five years after the expiration of their term to be considered for appointment for another five-year term.

• Removing the requirement to publish the proposed budget in the newspaper should state statute no longer require it. Currently state statute does require it to be published in a newspaper of general circulation in the Town. (12.3.C)

As mentioned above, a list of proposed changes was provided by the Charter Revision Commission to the Board of Selectmen in what is referred to as the Final Report. That Final Report can be viewed here. However, a few of the changes were eliminated by the Board of Selectmen at their August 6, 2025 meeting. A revised list was not provided. Consult the redline version of the charter for all changes recommended by the Board of Selectmen.

F4GG Comments

This question is difficult to digest because they are many changes being proposed in the way our Town government operates. Some can be considered a modernization - like removing surety bond requirements as they are no longer necessary and increasing the threshold on contracts requiring Board of Selectmen approval as the current dollar threshold is very low. 

However, there are also items in this omnibus question that the we believe the voters should have had the opportunity to weigh in individually on. 

One of those changes is the addition of the Chief of Staff position to the Charter - a highly paid position appointed solely by and reporting solely to the First Selectman. This was a change voters were vocally opposed to in the 2022 proposed revision. The current charter already gives the First Selectman the authority to hire assistants and to define what duties and responsibilities they have. Adding the title Chief of Staff is codifying a high paying  position. We don't believe it was a necessary change and can be viewed as giving more power to the First Selectman.

Another change that voters may have wanted the opportunity to weigh in on is the residency requirement of the Police and Fire Chiefs. The current charter requires the persons in those positions to be registered voters. This change removes the residency requirement. Some voters have expressed the desire to have the persons in those positions reside in the community in which they serve.

F4GG Recommendation

With omnibus questions, and especially those with 40 plus changes, it is difficult to make a recommendation one way or the other. Fairfielders for Good Government recommends that voters familiarize themselves with the changes, weighing the positives and negatives of the changes. In 2022 there were enough non-starters in the proposed changes that the single omnibus question failed at the ballot box.