Video: Charter Must Be Ratified To Protect Right To Vote For Planning Commission

The legality of allowing Charlestown voters to elect their Planning Commission is based on the voters’ approval in 1980 of our first Home Rule Charter; the Charter was ratified by the General Assembly and signed into law by the Governor in 1981. The 1981 ratification of the Charlestown Town Charter is a specific statute entitled the “Charlestown Charter Validation Act.”

The Charter change that would affect the Planning Commission (numbered as Question No. 9) was proposed for the July 9, 2024 public hearing, as follows: “Shall the Town Charter be amended at Part 14, Commissions and Boards, Article LIII, Planning Commission, § C-172 Establishment and organization; compensation, be amended to provide for a four (4) year term of office for full members with staggered terms of two (2) members in one election cycle and three (3) members in the next election cycle?”

Question No. 9 was written and sent to public hearing without any plan for ratification by the RI General Assembly. As explained by the Town’s solicitor on July 9, 2024, “If it is not ratified, you will put the Planning Commission’s legal authority in limbo … and undermine their position.”

Video of this discussion is below and only 5 minutes long.

By the end of the public hearing, a ratification condition was finally added to the question, but not before the Planning Commission Chair was criticized for raising the issue about Question No. 9. But had the issue not been raised, again, by the Planning Commission Chair, the question would have gone to the voters without a ratification condition and could have resulted in the voters losing their right to elect the Planning Commission.