Ansonia Aldermen will meet Tuesday (Aug. 26) to consider several changes to the city’s governing document proposed by the Charter Revision Commission, including reducing the number of voting wards and Aldermen.
The Charter Revision Commission held a public hearing last Wednesday (Aug. 20) on the changes, and after listening to a half-hour or so of public comments, the commissioners voted unanimously to forward them pretty much as-is to Aldermen.
Ansonia voters get the final say as to whether any changes will be made.
Aldermen have a deadline of Sept. 19 to vote on any changes they want to put to voters on the November election ballot.
The Board of Aldermen is scheduled to have a public hearing on the possible changes Tuesday (Aug. 26) at 6:30 p.m. at City Hall, 253 Main St.
Click here to read the notice of the hearing.
After the hearing, the Aldermen have a special meeting scheduled for 7 p.m.
At that meeting the Aldermen may accept the Charter Revision Commission’s recommendations as-is or send them back to the commission for further revision.
In case the recommendations are sent back, both the Aldermen and Charter Revision Commission have special meetings scheduled for later Tuesday.
About 25 people showed up during the commission’s public hearing on the changes.
Of those in attendance, a dozen weighed in on the charter changes proposed by the commission. All but three of them were current or former city officials.
Registrars of Voters Nancy Valentine and Thomas Maffeo began the meeting by saying the proposal to reduce the number of wards is a fiscally responsible move that makes sense for a city the size of Ansonia.
Valentine, the Republican registrar, said the number of registered voters in the city has gone from 9,653 in 2010 to 9,302 currently.
“We’ve lost a lot of folks, and there are so many moving away,” she said.
Valentine said the registrars also struggle to get enough “competent workers” on election day, saying those numbers would be cut roughly in half, from about 60 election-day workers to about 36 for non-presidential elections.
The registrars had told the commission previously that the move would save them about $5,000 per election.
Maffeo compared Ansonia to a dozen other municipalities with similar populations, and said most of them have fewer voting districts even though they’re bigger in area.
Article continues after document, emailed by Maffeo to the Valley Indy.
Connecticut Municipalities of Similar Population to Ansonia
“We’re not blazing new ground here in Ansonia,” he said.
Maffeo said that “some issues” might crop up if Ansonia decides to contract its voting wards, but that he and Valentine would have plenty of time to address any potential problems.
If Aldermen, and then voters, endorse the ward reduction idea, a separate “Ward Boundary Commission” would be appointed to actually redraw the lines of the city’s political districts.
Click the play button on the video above to see Valentine and Maffeo talk to the commission.
Not everyone was convinced the move makes sense.
Resident Robert Turschmann doubted the anticipated savings touted by the registrars would materialize.
“You’re going to go from seven voting places to three,” Turschmann said. “Are you going to keep the same amount of moderators in each place, and the same amount of checkers that you have now? No, you’re going to have to increase them … I don’t want to sell my representation for $5,000.”
Another resident, Joan Sweet, said she has worked at the polls in the past and said that if the city does move forward with a ward reduction, officials should hire more staffers at what polling places it does have. She also asked officials to take parking into consideration.
Article continues after video of Turschmann and Sweet.
Former Democratic Alderman David Knapp told the charter revisers he might not be “adamantly opposed” to a three-ward city, but worried whether Aldermen would be able to serve their constituents effectively or even meet with most of them while campaigning.
“Maybe four wards, maybe five wards I could see,” Knapp said.
He also lamented the fact that the reduction — with an accompanying change calling for three aldermen to be elected from each ward — would “remove five people from the political process.”
Later, Edward Adamowski, currently a Democratic Alderman representing the First Ward, agreed.
“I spend a lot of time walking around my ward actually speaking with my residents,” he said. “I think that’s going to be very hard to do with a larger ward if you go down to three.”
Article continues after video of Knapp and Adamowski.
Two Republican Aldermen also weighed in on the charter changes.
Patrick Henri, of the Sixth Ward, endorsed the ward reduction plan, while Charles Stowe, of the First Ward, said Knapp raised some good points.
Article continues after video.
Town Clerk Elizabeth Lynch told the Charter Revision Commission she had concerns about “politicizing” the budget process by putting the final decision on the city’s annual spending plan in the hands of the Board of Aldermen.
“There is a clear system of bipartisan checks and balances,” she said of the way the budget process works now.
Article continues after video.
Resident Bill Phipps expressed concern over a proposed change regarding meeting quorums, and told the commission a proposal to allow cops to participate in political campaigns might not be advisable.
John Marini, the city’s corporation counsel, later said that the charter’s prohibition against political campaigning by cops violated the First Amendment.
Phipps also pointed out that the charter’s Section 49 also contains a clause that prohibits the public works superintendent from being a city resident.
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The DPW’s current superintendent, Douglas Novak, is not a city resident.
His predecessor, Michael Schryver, who retired this year, does live in Ansonia, though the conflict with the charter was apparently never raised as an issue during his tenure.
The Charter Revision Commission hadn’t proposed any changes to that part of the charter, but after the hearing voted to lift the requirement that the DPW superintendent not live in Ansonia.
It was the only substantive change they made as a result of the hearing, voting to send the rest of the revisions to the Aldermen after about an hour of discussion.
Afterward, Christopher Lisi, the commission’s chairman, said members worked in a bipartisan fashion for months on the changes, which he said the Aldermen should put on the ballot for voters to decide on.
Mayor David Cassetti didn’t attend Wednesday’s hearing, but the Valley Indy caught up with him afterward at an outdoor concert by the Bernadettes that outdrew the charter hearing by a ratio of about five to one.
The mayor said the commission’s proposals were “sensible” and said they should go to voters as-is.
