Committee Finishes Review of Framingham Home Rule Charter

FRAMINGHAM - The Framingham Charter Review Committee finalized their proposed changes to the city’s Home Rule Charter during their final meeting at the Memorial Building on Thursday, June 13.

The group had been tasked with reviewing the charter, which was created after Framingham officially became a city at the start of 2018. The document is set to go under review starting every year ending in 3.

Members of the Charter Review Committee have been developing suggestions for months. Propositions have related to matters like transparency within the municipal government, efforts to increase civic engagement, and more. Legislative and executive suggestions were finalized during the previous meeting leading up to last Thursday, as the group finished their work by passing their recommendations on all changes related to Articles IV through X of the charter.

A motion was made by committee member Mary Zarrilli Connaughton and later approved during Thursday’s meeting for the proposed creation of a transparency committee within Framingham in order to make recommendations to the mayor and City Council. She explained that the body could provide oversight on transparency matters across the municipal government.

“It’s such a must for an engaged citizenry to see what’s going on, and I can’t see that we have anything to lose by it,” Connaughton said.

“It’s only recommendations, it’s another way for people to get involved and have ideas and share them with the council and the mayor.”

As she mentioned, the motion for the transparency committee is a non-binding recommendation from the Charter Review Committee, meaning that it is just an idea for officials to consider enacting. Chair of the group Adam Blumer explained that the Charter Review Committee’s role is not to develop a complete process of how that transparency committee would work.

Still, Charter Review Committee member Andy Limeri expressed his hope that the transparency group could get more citizens involved to see how the community would want to improve transparency.

“For me,” Limeri continued, “the genesis of this was when we were in our community meetings and listening to person after person get up and talk to us about how they had difficulty figuring out what was going on in the city based on the website and everything else.”

Recommended changes to the Home Rule Charter will now be passed along to the City Council for a final review before being approved and put into effect.