Petition submitted; voters will decide whether or not to switch to town manager

Town administrator or town manager?

Residents will decide.

On Monday morning, the group that has been pushing for a vote on whether Charlotte will switch to a town manager instead of a town administrator submitted a petition requiring the proposal to be on the ballot at Town Meeting Day.

Lane Morrison and Charles Russell, both former selectboard members, submitted 181 signed petitions. With 3,327 registered Charlotte voters, only 166 signatures were needed (representing 5 percent of the voters) to require the town to schedule a vote.

Shortly after, town clerk Mary Mead certified the signatures and submitted the petition to town administrator Dean Bloch.

Morrison said the vote will be by Australian, or secret, ballot on March 5.

The group had collected enough signatures on an earlier petition calling for a vote on the town manager issue, but never submitted it to accede to the selectboard’s desire for more time to consider the issue. The group had also hoped the selectboard would vote to put the issue before voters to decide, but that didn’t happen.

The selectboard did take a straw poll at its Aug. 14 meeting, and the four board members present (Kelly Devine was absent) said they did not support changing town government to a town manager.

Selectboard chair Jim Faulkner said the straw poll wasn’t the board approving or disapproving of holding a vote on switching to a town manager. The straw poll just means “that at this particular time the selectboard is not in favor of a town manager form of government.”

Shelburne has a town manager and Hinesburg switched to one a couple of years ago, and Faulkner said he wasn’t aware of anything positive or negative that’s happened to either of those towns because of having that type of government.

But Charlotte is unique because it has less municipal infrastructure. The town doesn’t have a municipal sewer or water system or, for the time being, fire and rescue service.

The earlier petition was also not submitted because Morrison and Russell’s group learned state statute mandates that the town manager must assume the duties of an elected road commissioner. Road commissioner Junior Lewis is consistently the top vote-getter on ballots, and the group didn’t want to abolish his position.

By state statute, if the earlier petition had been submitted, it would have required the town to hold a vote on switching to a town manager in 30 days, but this petition will not be voted on until March because it also includes a charter change that would supersede state statute and retain Charlotte’s elected road commissioner. A charter change needs to be voted on at a special town meeting or Town Meeting Day.

Deciding the issue on Town Meeting Day means there will be lots of time to consider the issue, Morrison said. The town is also required to hold two public hearings before the vote to discuss and share information about what changing to a town manager would mean.