Paul Bass photo
David Belowsky: Vote no to charter revisions — and let him live out his life on the city's Board of Park Commissioners.
Lawn signs opposing changes to the city’s charter have started popping up around town — after the chair of New Haven’s parks commission printed 25 “Vote No” placards in a bid to preserve his lifetime seat on the volunteer body that oversees public greenspaces.
That man, David Belowsky, isn’t the only New Havener paying attention to this year’s general election ballot question.
That ballot question reads in full: “Shall the City approve and adopt all other Charter changes as recommended by the Charter Revision Commission and approved by the Board of Alders?”
The Republican Party has sent out email blasts urging voters to reject the charter revisions, which include four-year terms for the mayor and alders.
A nonpartisan voter advocacy group has been trying to get out the word about what the single ballot question about charter revisions means at all.
And alders are reportedly gearing up to get out the word in support of the charter-revision proposal in the runup to election day on Nov. 7.
Through his lawn signs, meanwhile, Belowsky has zeroed in on the seemingly small: A proposed provision that would allow alders to rewrite an existing, mysterious rule that empowers three people on the city’s park commission — and no other boards or bodies — to serve forever, or at least until the end of their lives. Read about that immortality loophole in detail here.
“Yeah, that’s really the opposition,” Belowsky told the Independent when asked about the lawn signs.
“I go out at night,” he said, after his long days working as an insurance agent and parks preserver, to put up the signs. “You’d think I’d be sleeping, but I’m an enthusiast!” he declared.
What’s In Those Charter Changes, Anyway?
How the big charter question will appear on voters' ballots this year.
Little information has yet to be distributed about the changes to the charter that all voters will get to vote in favor of or against on their Nov. 7 ballots. The ballot comes at the end of a once-a-decade process of reviewing and revising city government’s guiding documents.
Alders are reportedly campaigning in favor of the edits as they go door to door campaigning for themselves, but no standard overview from that body or the Charter Revision Commission has been offered to the public. Charter Revision Commission Vice Chair and Board of Alders Majority Leader Richard Furlow said alders and volunteers will be provided with explanatory pamphlets – which have yet to be printed – in the final two weeks leading up to election day to hand out to voters.
Another volunteer group – the New Haven Votes coalition – has put together an informational flyer that voters can view here.
It shows what question will appear on the ballot, and it provides a summary for what the revision would actually do, including:
• Establish four-year terms for the mayor, alders, and city clerk.
• Increase alders’ annual stipend from $2,000 to $5,000.
• Clarify that alders must approve all city contracts of at least $100,000.
• Extend the window for alders’ approval of appointees to city boards and commissions from 60 to 90 days.
• Move most requirements for department heads out of the charter and into the code of ordinances, making them easier to change.
• Make language in the charter gender-neutral.
Read more coverage of the charter in the Independent here, here and here.
New Haven’s Republican party, meanwhile, have, like Belowsky, been campaigning against the charter changes, albeit for different reasons. One of multiple email newsletters sent out by local GOP Chair John Carlson against the revised charter reads that “the main problems are the change to 4 year terms, more than doubling the pay, and that alders put ALL the changes into ONE question.”
“20 percent of them aren’t showing up!” Carlson wrote of the alders, referring to this report on alder absenteeism in the Independent. “Does not showing up get you double the pay and a doubled term?”
“Four-year terms would reduce opportunities for democracy and limit civic engagement,” the message states.
Belowsky, on the other hand, said that “I don’t mind giving the alders a raise and I’m mixed about the four-year terms.”
“I do wish they didn’t mix everything together,” he argued, pointing to the alders’ choice to wrap all of their proposed edits into one “yes” or “no” question for voters to bubble-in on their November ballots.
But What About “Forever?”
Nora Grace-Flood photo
David Belowsky where he says he best belongs, in the head chair of the parks commission during their latest meeting Wednesday night.
Belowsky’s rejection of a niche change proposed to the city’s charter — concerning his own “lifetime” role on the parks commission — underscores something else: That even those paying close attention to the revisionary process are confused.
Charter Revision Vice Chair and Westville/Amity Alder Furlow had news for Belowsky: “Whether we vote the charter forward or not, we’re gonna vote on that anyway… there should not be a lifetime appointment on any commission.”
“This charter brings us into the 21st century,” Furlow said. “It’s like welcome to the new New Haven. Our city will have better structure and we’ll have better flow.”
Furlow pointed to four-year terms for all elected officials, including the mayor and alders, who currently serve for two years at a time; language corrections to make the document gender neutral rather than “very masculine”; new legal pathways to oversee residency requirements for department heads; and the removal of board and commissions “that do not play necessarily a vital role in the structure of our city,” such as the parks commission, from the charter altogether, as some of the most important alterations that voters will get to decide on this fall.
That latter change highlighted by Furlow is the source of contention identified by Belowsky. That’s the provision that would move granular requirements and structural outlines of many city departments, boards, and commissions out of the charter and into ordinance form.
As a result of that revision, alders would be able to restructure numerous departments, boards, and commissions through the typical legislative process, rather than waiting up to a decade to make those changes through the more arduous charter revision system.
For example, alders have indeed indicated intention to eliminate “lifetime appointees” to the parks commission.
There are currently three individuals on the eight-person parks commission who are ostensibly allowed to stay on the board until they choose to leave – or until they die. That includes Belowsky, who said the commission adopted a rule in their bylaws more than two decades ago which empowered members of the commission to appoint up to three of their fellow commissioners for “lifetime service.”
“It’s helpful to the parks department,” he reflected, “because there’s a commitment over a long period of time so commissioners get comfortable with employees and staff, and it’s a more productive and positive time.” Plus, he said, it’s not easy to get people to jump on a volunteer board like the parks commission. The board currently has a vacant Republican seat, for instance.
Laura Glesby file photo
Alder Richard Furlow: "There should not be a lifetime appointment on any commission.”
Furlow, however, noted that the charter change is really designed to allow for departmental restructurings without incidentally disobeying the document. For example, the Elicker administration recently opted to merge the former Parks, Recreation and Trees department with Public Works and Youth Services, in turn creating the Department of Parks and Public Works and the Department of Youth and Recreation.
That decision, which also spurred a perhaps surprising degree of controversy, could arguably be at odds with the charter, which mandates the existence of certain departments, including Public Works.
The charter includes no mention, however, of lifetime appointments. “There was some agreement way back when that a certain somebody would have a lifetime appointment. Nobody is able to find any record of it,” Furlow said. (The only evidence this reporter was able to find were the parks’ old bylaws, provided by Belowsky, which states that commissioners length of appointments “is three years, excluding those with lifetime appointments.”)
Since there’s no mention of lifetime appointments in the charter, Furlow interpreted, there’s no reason why the Board of Alders can’t pass an ordinance barring lifetime appointments regardless of how people vote on the charter this year.
That said, he noted that the board will hear public input on the matter before voting in either direction — and that one possible consideration could include drafting legislation that would allow current lifers to finish their terms without allowing for any new lifelong appointments.
Speaking broadly in favor of the charter changes, Furlow referenced the charter revision commission’s year-long undertaking of researching best practices in other municipalities like Hartford and Meriden in order to craft smarter governmental structures. Similarly, he said that the city is “following the trend of just about every other major city that has a charter revision” by encapsulating all of the proposed edits into one ballot question.
“Have you ever seen eight ballot questions?” regarding a charter overhaul, he asked. “And we didn’t draw up the question ourselves, we had legal counsel with this.”
Belowsky cited that logic while making his final push to shove a new charter out the window. “They say that they checked all the cities in Connecticut and nobody has permanent members. What does that got to do with our city of New Haven’s Board of Park Commissioners?
“Why do we have to be like everyone else?” he inquired. “There’s no reason for that.”
Unlike the city’s parks, many of which are in dire disrepair, the charter is fine the way it is, Belowsky said. “If it’s ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”
A full draft of the charter with proposed revisions can be found here, and the summary of changes that the commission formally submitted to alders and that alders approved for the Nov. 7 ballot question is available here.
See below for previous articles about this year’s Charter Revision Commission process.
• Elicker: Mayor & Alders Should Serve 4‑Year Terms
• 4‑Year Terms OK’d For November Ballot
• Alders Block Non-Citizens From Boards For Now
• Immigrants Cut Short, Walk Out
• Immigrant Participation, Protections Eyed
• Revisers Punt On Residency Requirements
• 4‑Year Terms, Residency Requirements Embraced
• Immortality Loophole Looms For Board Lifers
• To Split Or Not To Split Traffic & Police Boards
• Charter Revisers Eye Alder Pay Bump
• If It’s Good Enough For Hartford, Middletown
• Elicker Administration Pitches 4‑Year Terms
• Union Targets Mayor’s Ed Board Influence
• Ready. Set. Revise!
• 9 Approved For Charter Revision Commission
• Alders Establish Charter Revision Commission
• 4‑Year Terms Back Up For Debate
I support 4 year terms for Mayor but not for Alders.
Sorry Mr. Mayor but for me its a resounding NO.