Somervillians vote on a revamped city charter in the Nov. 4 election through two ballot questions: whether the city should adopt the changes; and whether to extend mayoral terms to four years from two, likely taking effect at the 2028 election.
The current charter, the city’s constitutional document, was created upon Somerville’s founding in 1871, with amendments following in 1899. Several changes have been proposed and passed since, including adopting gender-neutral language in 2022.
Somerville’s proposed charter change keeps the city’s basic structure: a mayor-council government, a council with 11 members – four at-large and seven ward representatives – and School Committee with seven ward-based seats and the mayor and council president serving by virtue of their offices.
The overhaul is more about modernizing operations – making government more accessible and transparent, and giving the council stronger checks on executive power:
- New wording replaces antique language and Latin phrasing to make the document easier to read. The proposal also, for the first time in a lengthy history, adds a welcoming preamble.
- Procedural gaps are replaced with more enforceable timelines, including a structured political confirmation process with rigid deadlines to ensure that neither the mayor or council can delay nominees indefinitely. Still, the council can reject nominees if they do not deem them appropriate.
- An annual independent financial audit will be presented to the council, which could determine a department, division or program is “subjected to an expanded scope” of audit or “internal control review.”
- Where the current charter says little on the matter, and state law has been needed to fill gaps, the revised text lays out a strict timeline of yearly budget hearings and deadlines, starting with a public council hearing to solicit public input by Feb. 15 of every year. The mayor must meet jointly with the council and School Committee in March and present a budget to the council before June. From there the budget is posted and the council holds hearings to propose alterations, holding a final vote by June 30.
- A number of measures seek to increase accountability and professionalism in city government. A chief administrative officer will run day-to-day city operations, freeing the mayor to focus on broader goals and community engagement; councilors gain the ability to hire staff and retain independent legal counsel, strengthening their ability to act independently of the executive.
- The city’s organizational chart moves from the charter to the city’s administrative code, allowing for positions and organizational structures to be updated without state approval. (This does not apply to roles such as mayor or city councilor.)
- Reviews of the charter, city ordinance and city boards and commissions are required at least once every 10 years.
- Committees will be formed to explore ranked-choice voting, which is used in neighboring Cambridge, and public campaign financing.
Some of the review committee’s more ambitious proposals were cut to raise the charter’s chances of success, including noncitizen voting in local elections and the lowering of the municipal voting age to 16. Some change “was just not going to happen at the State House level,” Ward 1 councilor Matt MacLaughlin said.
The Somerville Charter Ballot Question Committee webpage has a detailed breakdown of the changes and a comparison of the two charters.
Long process
An advisory committee set up by former Somerville mayor Joe Curtatone in 2008 recommended changes similar to the most recent attempts at reform; only a few minor changes were passed separately as part of a special act. Curtatone and then-council president MacLaughlin renewed efforts in October 2020.
The mayor, council president and School Committee chair selected members for a Charter Review Committee borne out of these efforts, which met biweekly from April 2021 to August 2022 to deliberate changes to “make our government more just, empowering, responsive and innovative for its residents.” It came up with 36 recommended updates.
A multilanguage brochure describing the process and how to get involved was mailed to 10,000 Somerville residents. A kickoff event was held in Foss Park on Aug. 28, 2021, and committee members tabled and talked about the review at events such as local farmers markets and Rotary meetings. A monthly newsletter described progress, and meetings allowed for residents to voice their opinions or ask questions.
The committee hosted community meetings in the fall of 2021 and surveyed residents the next spring about what outcomes residents hoped to see, drawing more than 900 responses. A final public hearing in the summer of 2022 presented recommendations and gathered feedback. The resulting report went to the council in September to prepare a home rule petition – which cities and towns file for state permission to make local changes – to enact the revamp.
In May 2023 the revised charter was passed to mayor Katjana Ballantyne for her signature, but councilor at-large Willie Burnley Jr. raised a late motion to let the council amend mayoral budgets and fund specific line items or create their own. The proposal was shot down with a 3-7-1 vote, with several opposing councilors reacting sharply to what they saw as “antagonism” and “lazy virtue signaling.”
Drama along the way
The proposal sent to Ballantyne after the May 2023 meeting sat for more than a year, Ward 2 councilor J.T. Scott wrote, returning a neutered counterproposal in September 2024 that forced the council into another six months of “deliberation and negotiation.”
MacLaughlin recalled in a conversation with Cambridge Day that the negotiations boiled down to three sticking points: “the mayoral term length, the city solicitor and the city auditor/auditing process.”
This March, a revised version of the charter – shelving several council efforts to rebalance powers with the mayor – passed the council unanimously and kicked off a phase of reaching agreements and sending the petition to Beacon Hill.
The mayor and council struck a deal on the city solicitor. The council rejected Ballantyne’s calls to give the solicitor three-year terms – currently it’s two – but agreed to raise the threshold for rejecting a reappointment to a two-thirds voting majority, or eight votes.
Changes to the auditing process swung in the council’s favor.
Councilors agreed eventually to put Ballantyne’s insistence on four-year mayoral terms on the ballot as a separate question, allowing the bulk of the reforms to proceed. Reaching the concession “held the whole thing up for such a long time,” MacLaughlin said.
Tensions came to a head in late April, when Scott issued a dramatic “charter right” declaration at a meeting intended to advance the petition – delaying the vote until the following meeting. He brought forward a wide range of amendments to also be added as separate ballot questions, but all failed with only two votes in favor.
Councilors said they did not disagree with much of what had been brought up, but believed that tacking on so many additional ballot questions would see the home rule petition shot down by the state Legislature. “He was just trying to make a point” and vent frustration, MacLaughlin said of Scott, praising his current backing of the proposed charter.
The council approved the final home rule petition in May, and Ballantyne signed. The petition was referred to the Join Committee on Municipalities and Regional Government by state representative Christine Barber, who on Tuesday praised the modernizing of a 19th century document for its “increased transparency, enhanced public participation” and expanded support for the council. It saw a few clerical redrafts and was signed by the governor in September.
It’s now in the hands of Somerville voters.
A stronger
Please consider making a financial contribution to maintain, expand and improve Cambridge Day.
We are now a 501(c)3 nonprofit and all donations are tax deductible.
Please consider a recurring contribution.