Use this search box to find articles that have run in our newspapers over the last several years.
Date: 12/5/2023
LUDLOW — The town approved an article at Town Meeting on May 8 to raise and appropriate $25,000 to hire a municipal government expert to support the town’s goal of creating a new town charter.
The approval of the funds started a 12- to 18-month process with an expert to guide the committee.
Town Administrator Marc Strange said that he and Human Resources Director Carrie Ribeiro have met with Michael Ward from the University of Massachusetts Boston’s Edward J. Collins Center for Public Management to discuss a scope of services to guide the soon to be appointed government study committee.
Strange added that one of the Collins Center’s core competencies is charter change assistance and government study committee facilitation.
A Charter Committee was formed and began meeting this past September.
The town is looking to transition to a different form of government that relies less on Town Meeting and possibly move to a more mayor form of government.
The Charter Committee’s responsibility is to bring a better and more efficient form of government to Ludlow.
“A town that now has an $81 million budget and we have projects like the Ludlow Mills which is bursting at the seams, we have a Veterans Center that has become regional and is bursting at the seams and our Police Department, our Fire Department, our DPW, there are all working hard,” Selectman and Charter Committee member Derek DeBarge said.
He added, “One thing we all agree on, and I think it is a consensus of most people in town if you talk to them is our form of government that we have now is just not working. It’s too slow and with the kind of budget that Ludlow has now, you need a full-time government and a strong top level from the top down.”
Ludlow currently has a Representative Town Meeting, a town administrator, Board of Selectmen and multiple committees and boards.
DeBarge said, “The way we have it now is it makes it tough to get things in a timely manner and let’s face it, people want to get things done quicker. Our task as a committee through a whole myriad of ways is studying different municipalities and forms of government and bring to our voting population what we feel would be a better form of government for the way our town runs.”
The Charter Committee consists of 11 members including two selectmen.
According to DeBarge, the goal of the committee is to have a suggested new charter available for the October 2024 Town Meeting.
From there, if approved, it must go to the state legislature and depending on the length of that process, there would be a ballot question in March 2025.
The committee recently committed to researching two main forms of government: town manager/Town Council and mayor/Town Council.
DeBarge said, “One thing that we decided on was that we want to be able to look at what forms of governments would be best for our community but also provide different types to the voting population as we go through this.”
At its next meeting on Dec. 7, the Charter Committee will be meeting with a mayor, town administrator and town manager from different cities to learn more about how their government runs.
“The Charter Committee’s responsibility is to be as transparent and open-minded as possible when it comes to the information we get and provide to the voting population is what is most important. You want to provide the residents with the best information with what the collective things is the best direction to go in and you want to see that get passed,” DeBarge said.
This is not the first time that Ludlow has gone attempted to change its charter.
According to DeBarge, in 2006 there was a Charter Commission formed and its process took them until 2008 to propose a mayor/Town Council form of government.
It would eventually get voted down at the town election.
The new Charter Committee has copies of the previous charter and committee member Brian Bylicki was the chair of the last Charter Committee.
“He brings a wealth of knowledge as far as what their committee did back in 2006 and if we have questions about certain processes. I remember when the question came up on the ballot. The difference with this is really not that much other than the fact maybe how we formed the committee,” DeBarge added.
The Charter Committee meets on the first and third Thursday of each month at 6 p.m. in the Board of Selectmen room at Town Hall.
They are televised live and uploaded to Ludlow TV the next day.
DeBarge added that these meetings are open to the public and the committee would like to see more public participation and potentially an open forum.
“We would love to have people attend our meetings. We will have time for public speaking, and we also would like people to be involved through social media. We need to start generating conversation and we as a committee are very interested in the voice of the registered voters of this town,” DeBarge said.