Thursday, September 2, 1999 Older Editions

Larsen pushes charter review

By Neil Fater

Andover's government underwent massive changes during the late 1950s, when the town created its charter. Now, Selectman Larry Larsen says it's time to do a sweeping review of the entire town charter for the first time.

"Possibly no single issue has caused as much furor as when I proposed this," says Larsen.

No wonder. In the 1950s, when the town established the charter Larsen wants to review, it marked the end of an era.

By 1958, Andover residents at Town Meeting had voted to install a strong town manager for the first time, turn 24 previously elected positions into appointed posts and to bar selectmen, School Committee and Finance Committee members from holding other offices.

One year later, in 1959, all incumbent selectmen were voted out of office.

Larsen says he wants a charter commission to review the charter in large part because of frequent complaints from residents about recent Town Meetings. Some residents say they didn't get a chance to speak on certain issues, while others think there are too many articles to discuss, or that the town has grown too big for an open Town Meeting.

Possible solutions being bantered about include creating two annual Town Meetings, replacing open Town Meeting with a representative one or tinkering with the current Town Meeting format.

Larsen says he supports the current, open Town Meeting, in which any registered voter can vote and speak on any article. But he says selectmen should give the voters a chance to decide what they prefer.

"I feel that, as selectmen, it's our obligation to respond to the body politic. Our charter has had no review since 1959," says Larsen. "I feel we should be opening ourselves and opening the process to a study."

Larsen says selectmen and other public officials should not conduct the study, but instead should make it "as much an outsiders' effort as possible." He says the board of selectmen "has already made up its mind."

"Those you'd expect to be pro-Town Meeting are pro-Town Meeting," says Larsen. "There's a strong element (in town) that is saying, 'You need to get more efficient. Perhaps a representative town meeting is in order.'"

If selectmen do not vote to open the charter, Larsen says he will bring a warrant article on charter review to Town Meeting himself.

That may be necessary, since Larsen's fellow selectmen aren't exactly jumping at the chance to support him.

Chairman John Hess expresses reluctance to create another committee that will study Town Meeting, because the League of Woman Voters (LWV) and Town Moderator Jim Doherty are already forming groups to address Town Meeting, he says.

But Larsen says a charter commission would not simply limit its discussion to Town Meeting.

"Everything (about Andover government) ought to be open for review. Everything. Do we appoint or elect Finance Committee members? Do we have a town manager or not?" says Larsen. "It's a completely open review of the charter."

Doherty acknowledges the committee he is forming "is not any earth-shaking thing. It is not a study of whether we should be opening up the charter."

But Doherty says he is not against selectmen creating a group to look at the charter, as long as the group begins the work without preconceived ideas.

His group will take a sharper focus, looking at ways to improve the existing type of meeting.

"I'm putting together a group of people who have had experience with attending many years of Town Meeting. I'm hoping to have a committee of about nine people, (at least one) from each section of town," says Doherty.

"We're going to tinker with the procedure of the existing Town Meeting," he says. "My own feeling is I would like to see what we can come up with and try it out at the next meeting."

LWV member Madhu Sridhar says the League has created a one-page questionnaire (see sidebar) to learn what residents think about Town Meeting. The questionnaire will be a part of the group's first bulletin this fall, and also be available at the League's table at the Know Your Town Fair on Sept. 18.

"Depending on what the results of the survey are, we may want to do a study of Town Meeting," says Sridhar.

But Sridhar indicates the League has not made up its collective mind. She says, "There are no leading questions in the questionnaire. We've tried to eliminate any form of bias."

Although the questionnaire does not make any specific reference to a representative Town Meeting, it does ask: "Are you in favor of maintaining an open town meeting? If not, what form of town government do you prefer?"

If the town does decide to open and then change its charter with a Town Meeting and then special-ballot vote, the change would also need to be approved by the state Legislature, say town officials.

Such a review and change would take several years.

"(I believe) the Town of Andover has the largest open form of democratic self-government in the world," says Doherty. "I find it hard to believe that the rank and file who attend Town Meeting would want to give that up."