RTM to Weigh Town Charter Changes

The Representative Town Meeting is set to consider changes to Darien's Town Charter that would tweak legal notice requirements and expand on the criteria which can be considered when selecting a contract bid.

The revisions were given a public hearing—albeit sparsely attended—before the RTM's Town Government Structure & Administration Committee Monday evening, clearing the measure to come before the full body at its September meeting.

The first of the updates would affect Sec. 39 (a)2 and (c) of the charter. Currently, those clauses require the Board of Selectmen to publish estimates for the upcoming budget, data from the current and previous fiscal years, and finalized appropriations and tax rates "in a newspaper published in the town, if there be any, otherwise in a newspaper published in Stamford or Norwalk."

Committee member Frank Kemp said this became a problem when the Board of Finance finished its work on the 2010-11 budget too close to the April publication deadline proscribed by the charter.

"The way the calendar fell—with the publication of the local papers—it couldn't be done, so they had to take out several pages of advertisment ... in the Stamford Advocate," Kemp said. Ad space in the Advocate is considerably more expensive than in the Darien Times or Darien News, he explained.

The new language would require this information to be published only in a "legal notice that complies with state law." Deadlines would also be loosened slightly to any time during the fourth week of April in the case of final appropriations and any time during the second week in March in the case of other disclosures.

This would give officials more flexibility immediately, Kemp said, but it would also allow Darien to publish such notices on the town's website in lieu of a newspaper ad if Connecticut changes to law to this effect in the future.

State Senate Republican Leader John McKinney (R-Fairfield) and house Republican Leader Larry Cafero have proposed legislation to do just that, but the measure is strongly opposed by the Connecticut Daily Newspaper Association and many publishers.

The second change would modify a clause in Sec. 46 of the charter requiring the town to accept contract bids from the "lowest responsive and responsible bidder."

According to Kemp, the existing language restricts Darien's ability to consider factors like maintenance, replacement parts, and service agreements in determining the lowest bidder.

The revisions—which Kemp said were recommended by Town Administrator Karl Kilduff and written by Town Counsel—would allow such factors to enter into the town's decision, as well as the "character, integrity, reputation, judgment, experience and efficiency" of the bidder. Any time the absolute lowest bid was rejected, a justification would have to be submitted to the Board of Selectmen at its next meeting.

Current language also prevents the town from joining multi-state purchasing cooperatives, Kemp said, which use purchasing power to bring down the cost of items like computers and pencils for constituent towns. The new language would change that.

District IV RTM member Jim Cameron, who was the only non-committee member of the public to speak at Monday's meeting, asked how the Board of Selectman would handle some of the "subjective" points of the new language. (Full disclosure: Cameron writes occasionally for Patch.)

"This 'character, integrity, reputation, and judgment' sounds like it's something very hard to verify, and I wonder if that might be used improperly to reject a lower bid and accept a slightly higher bid," Cameron said.

Committee member Sarah Seelye emphasized that the town would ask for references as it considered these traits, but Kemp said that the committee would forward Cameron's question for clarification. 

The Representative Town Meeting will convene next on Monday, September 27 at 8:00 p.m. in the Town Hall Auditorium.