Medford residents will vote on a new city charter during the Nov. 4 election after the Massachusetts state legislature voted to approve, and Gov. Maura Healey signed, the charter on Sept. 19. The charter, which establishes the city’s government, was last changed in 1986 and was only two pages long.
The new city charter, should residents vote to adopt it, will shift the composition of the City Council from seven at-large members to three at-large councilors and eight ward representatives. Mayoral terms would be capped at four terms, each four years long, and the School Committee composition also would shift to a combination of at-large and district-based members.
Other changes include holding annual joint budget meetings for the City Council and School Committee, and a provision that the School Committee will elect their own chair rather than the mayor automatically being chair.
The city council, school committee and mayoral changes would start in 2027 for the next election cycle while other provisions, such as random positionings for candidates on ballots and opportunities for resident participation in the City Council, would be implemented once the city clerk certifies the ballot question’s result.
Charter Study Committee Chair Milva McDonald explained the process for the charter’s review.
“There was a group called the Medford Charter Review Coalition that … asked the mayor to appoint a committee to review the Charter, which would then go through the council and mayor and be sent to the State House as a Home Rule petition, and if passed, result in a special act charter,” McDonald explained. “So that is what the mayor agreed to do, and she formed the committee in late 2022.”
The committee, made up of Medford residents who applied and were selected by Mayor Breanna Lungo-Koehn, culminated after 20 months with a list of recommendations for a new city charter. The committee also sourced feedback from the Medford community, holding city hall events, listening sessions and surveys. The committee also interviewed current and former city officials.
Committee Member Ron Giovino emphasized the importance of having a committee made up of residents to design the charter.
“I think what it did was it allowed us to meet a lot of people who had a lot of different ideas, that came from a lot of different beliefs,” Giovino said. “It was a great opportunity to listen to and try to disseminate the reasons why people wanted what they want.”
Lungo-Koehn agreed with Giovino and discussed residents’ role in planning.
“During the process, I really tried to take a step back. I wanted this to be community driven, and I wanted what the community wanted,” Lungo-Koehn said. “[The coalition] has the community’s interests at heart.”
McDonald explained how the committee compiled responses to create recommendations for the new charter.
“One of the rules of thumb that I think we learned early on was that there’s a lot that can go into a charter, but it’s important to try not to put things in the charter that can be put somewhere else,” McDonald said.
The charter also introduces “citizen participation mechanisms,” which would enable residents to influence city council priorities. A group petition would allow residents to collect 100 signatures to put a measure on the City Council agenda, while an initiative petition procedure would allow residents to get a measure passed in a city-wide ballot question.
“If there’s a group of residents or a resident that wants to get a measure put on the ballot and passed, there’s a signature collection process for that and a process for putting it on the ballot so that voters can vote on it,” McDonald said. “There’s a process for collecting signatures to overturn a measure that passed by the City Council or the School Committee. And there’s a process to recall the mayor.”
The charter with new recommendations was reviewed by the Edward J. Collins, Jr. Center for Public Management at University of Massachusetts Boston and edited by Lungo-Koehn before passing to the City Council. Giovino shared how discussions occurred between the Lungo-Koehn, the City Council and the Charter Study Committee.
“Finishing the charter was only the beginning of the process, and then the debate moved on,” Giovino said. “I would say 90% of what the committee put forward is in the charter today, so I’m pretty proud of that, but there were certainly some negotiations. … Ward representation was on the docket for the debate, and also the other big one was the role of the mayor on the School Committee.”
McDonald expressed a hope that ward representation would enable candidates to be more involved with their ward constituents as opposed to being at-large and more removed from smaller communities.
Lungo-Koehn noted that the new charter implements a mandatory charter review process, where the charter must be reviewed in five years and every 10 years after the first review.
“I think it’s a really strong document, and it’s one that is well overdue,” Lungo-Koehn said. “I urge people to vote yes. If there’s a portion of the charter that one may not like, please know that we are going to be reviewing it every five years and making adjustments accordingly.”
“I’m very proud of the fact that the document that we created is a true representation of what we heard from the people,” Giovino added. “What we put together is a fantastic document that should last forever with a lot of changes as people want change.”
