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Date: 5/16/2022
LUDLOW – With discussions and questions about the town’s government structure during the lead up to Town Meeting and throughout the budget process, some members of the Ludlow Board of Selectmen are interested in possibly reworking the town’s current form of government.
Board of Selectmen member Derek DeBarge sat down with Reminder Publishing to discuss the process of potentially changing the form of government. DeBarge said the biggest challenge is getting signatures to put a charter review question on the ballot for the next annual election in 2023. With over 14,000 registered voters, a charter review requires over 2,200 signatures to be brought to the ballot.
“We’ll get all those signatures and then we can get the charter commission on the ballot which would be, ‘Would you vote for a charter commission to do a study on changing the Ludlow form of government,’” he said.
Unlike other communities where there are regular charter reviews, DeBarge said Ludlow does not have a standing charter review commission.
“We’re running on the charter that we have, we do not have a charter commission in place, the first step is the signature, then you’ve got to get it on the ballot and if it passes on the ballot then you begin the selection process of the charter commission,” he said.
Along with the ballot process for the review and then a potential decision on a change in government, the final approval would have to go through the state Legislature.
Due to disruptions from COVID-19, DeBarge said plans to collect signatures have been on hold since 2019 but the process began several years before that.
“Eric Gregoire, who was the chairman of the Finance Committee for such a long time, and I had talked about this for the last five years and Eric may have even started it sooner. He and I took an active role in trying to get the signatures out to people and then COVID [-19] hit and it was hard to get people willing to go out and get signatures, so we had to adjust,” he said.
DeBarge said the effort to get the question on the ballot comes from a group of people in town.
“I’ve been talking about it a lot, other selectmen have been talking about it and I hear from people too, so I think there is a strong message out there that a lot of the citizens that pay attention to our town government and how antiquated and slow we move would like to see options from a charter commission,” he said.
Some of those options could include a mayoral form of government, turning the town administrator into a town manager and continuing with the Board of Selectmen or shifting to a Town Council.
“Those two positions would have more authority over other departments and committees unlike we do now. Now the Board of Selectmen is equal in a lot of ways to the Board of Public Works and School Committee. A lot of times it slows down the governmental process because there is not a prudent command structure in our town.” DeBarge said.
One factor behind the change is declining participation at Town Meeting every year with dwindling numbers for precinct members, which is currently the base of Ludlow’s form of government.
“Every year it seems like we are losing more and more precinct members as we go. If you talk to other towns, it’s very similar with this kind of government. It seems like as everyone else is progressing, Ludlow is staying on an even plane and I think we need to start progressing with a more advanced and faster moving government,” he said.
DeBarge stressed the importance of Town Meeting even as the town government may be changing in the next several years.
“It seems with how busy the world is right now and everybody else is, it seems like getting these people to go to these meetings in May and October and really get into the guts of these articles because these are important things we do. Last year when we passed the $74 million budget, there wasn’t one question from anyone,” he said.
A previous effort to change the town’s form of government was shot down at the ballot over 15 years ago.
“The last time this was done a mayoral form of government was chosen and it failed at the ballot. The charter commission took somewhere between 12 and 18 months to do a thorough study before they came to a decision,” DeBarge said.
In terms of what he would like to see, DeBarge said he would like to see the town administrator shift to a town manager and be backed up by the Board of Selectmen or a new Town Council.
“I think an important thing about that is that you have five that are completely different individuals, have different backgrounds, have different professions and bring a different outlook into the issues of this community, and I think that is very important rather than being one voice,” he said.
Ultimately, DeBarge said he would support the voters’ decision about the form of government.
“Times have changed, I don’t necessarily think a mayoral form of government is the right one for our town, I don’t think we need to be a city, but if the people in the ballot vote for that, then I’m all for it,” he said.
DeBarge added that he and other members of the Board of Selectmen and members of town government will be collecting signatures through rest of the calendar year in order to put the question on the ballot for the 2023 town election.