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Troy Charter Changes To Be Discussed

WAMC Photo by Dave Lucas

The Troy City Council has decided to take a second look at the revised city charter that became effective last Friday.

The Troy Charter Review Commission was launched by previous Mayor Lou Rosamilia in 2015.  That year, voters passed a referendum that made several updates to a previous amending of the charter in 1996.  The document hasn't had a major revision since its inception in 1973. Mayor Patrick Madden, a Democrat, says that after a series of about 20 public meetings and considering "tons" of public comment, the charter was re-vamped based on the input.   "The charter also reflects a different philosophical, an emerging philosophical approach, to writing charters. So, many charters, and ours included, our past one in Troy, tended to get down in the details more than it needed to. The current view is that charters should function more like a constitution and set forth the basic structure of government. But the details as to which side of the street you park on on which day ought to be left to something like the city administrative code. You don't really need to get to that level of detail in the charter. So our re-write of the charter reflected that."

City Council President Carmella Mantello, a Republican, says the council did a comparison of the old versus new charter, finding about 19 of what she characterizes as "substantial changes" from the old charter to the new charter, along with some "glaring omissions,"   "...specifically for the legislative branch, whereby, right now, as of July 1st, when the charter took place, we have no attorney."

Mantello noted the revised charter makes no provision to fill a vacancy should one of the city's three judges leave office.  Mayor Madden:   "So I think it would be fruitful for them maybe to speak to some of us who served on the charter review commission and get a sense of why there are particular changes."

The changes are scheduled to be discussed during a workshop and public meeting July 11th at 6 p.m. at City Hall.   "Just talking about the major changes in the new charter. But once again, the voters approved it and we do not have any intention to change anything the voters approved, other than correct the deletions and the glaring omissions."

Madden says he hasn't been invited to the meeting, but expects he's welcome to attend.    "And I hope that maybe myself and our current corporation counsel who also served on the charter review commission, and maybe some of the other charter review commission members, would be able to speak to these changes that seem to be causing some consternation."

Local law process, involving holding a series of hearings and a vote on making changes, would have be followed if it was found that any omissions needed to be re-instated

Dave Lucas is WAMC’s Capital Region Bureau Chief. Born and raised in Albany, he’s been involved in nearly every aspect of local radio since 1981. Before joining WAMC, Dave was a reporter and anchor at WGY in Schenectady. Prior to that he hosted talk shows on WYJB and WROW, including the 1999 series of overnight radio broadcasts tracking the JonBenet Ramsey murder case with a cast of callers and characters from all over the world via the internet. In 2012, Dave received a Communicator Award of Distinction for his WAMC news story "Fail: The NYS Flood Panel," which explores whether the damage from Hurricane Irene and Tropical Storm Lee could have been prevented or at least curbed. Dave began his radio career as a “morning personality” at WABY in Albany.
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