From April 12: The Newton Charter Commission reversed its decision from two weeks ago (see below) and returned to the proposal that recommends 8 City Councilors elected at-large with a residency requirement, as well as 4 at-large Councilors. This means that each ward will have at least one Councilor, and 4 will be from anywhere in the city of Newton. There were a number of other smaller changes…see our observer notes for more details on that.
From March 30: On Wednesday night, the Newton Charter Commission voted 5-4 to change the proposed structure of the City Council. The old and new proposals both have 8 members elected at-large, with a residency requirement–meaning there would be one member from each ward in Newton who will be elected by the whole city. The proposed change is that instead of 4 truly at-large councilors, there would be 4 councilors, elected by the whole city, with residency requirements by “district.” There are currently no “districts” though they were discussed as the combination of two contiguous wards, without specifying which wards were paired together. The Charter Commission voted 7-1-1 to have the Election Commission determine the districts.
Term limits remained the same as in the proposal (8 year for School Committee, 12 years for the Mayor, and 16 years for the City Council), with some tweaking of other aspects of the charter. For more specifics, check out our observer notes on our website–go to lwvnewton.org and click on the “observer notes” section in the charter box on the right.
To make your thoughts known to the charter commission, email all the members are chartercommission@newtonma.gov.