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Date: 4/12/2022
BELCHERTOWN – Following an attempted recall for School Committee members Michael Knapp and Diane Brown in January, the Belchertown Select Board met with its legal counsel to discuss potential changes to the town’s recall bylaw during a meeting on April 4.
Prior to the discussion, board Vice Chair Jim Barry said he looked at recall bylaws in other towns across the state before coming up with a list of eight points of interest that should be discussed or included in any potential bylaw change.
“Some of the ideas that came up that seemed to have some agreement on was a specific reason for the recall, other bylaws have been more explicit in terms of itemizing a list of reasons that the person who is asking for the recall to be initiated must assign a reason,” he said.
Lauren Goldberg, an attorney with KP Law, the town’s legal counsel, said she had prior experience as the firm’s legal counsel to the elections division and working with town clerks and other officials to work on recall and election bylaws. Before any bylaw is finalized, she said the changes would need to pass at Town Meeting and through the state legislature.
Goldberg said it could be difficult to require petitioners to include a specific reason they are seeking a recall of a town official.
“I think it is worth thinking about, whether a proposed recall would rise or fall on its own merit as compared to listing out the behavior that is being objected to in the position. It is harder to explain if you are trying to pursue the recall if it is not on the petition itself,” she said. “I would not put that in unless someone really wanted to, and I wouldn’t suggest requiring them to explain why the behavior is a violation.”
Goldberg added that using a single vote as the grounds for a recall came down to voters signing the petition. However, other towns did include that language in their recall bylaws.
“Wenham just got their recall special act passed, so they haven’t used it yet, but they did want to make clear it was not to be used just because you don’t like how someone voted as compared to if they did something or said something inappropriate that put the town in a bad position,” she said.
When coming up with a revised bylaw, Goldberg said it would be important to balance the number of required signatures and the time required to get said signatures.
“The place where you really have control over the process is through the number of signatures that are required and the number of days allowed to gather those signatures. It should be a heavy lift to remove someone, but it should not be impossible,” she said. “If you have to get 500 in three days, that is different from having to get 500 in a month.”
Goldberg added that the town should look at the level of participation in town elections when determining what the threshold for a recall petition should be. Along those lines, she added that the town could institute a minimum required voter turnout for the recall to be valid.
“It is really related to the number of registered voters, and I would emphasize that on your voting list you have active voters and inactive voters, but they are still voters and still eligible to sign their names on the petition and they are also eligible voters, even if they are inactive,” she said. I wouldn’t ignore the inactive number altogether; I think it is probably an indicator of what the population shifts are over time.”
When asked about including the recalled member on the ballot, Goldberg said they could be put in a difficult situation compared to who is running for their seat.
“It’s kind of awkward if you think about it because the other candidates are out there campaigning, but this person has to be out there campaigning to say vote no and then don’t for any of the other people, so I think it is a fairness issue in practical terms,” she said.
Goldberg said it was feasible to create a proposed bylaw change ahead of Annual Town Meeting on May 9.
Board member Ronald Aponte said he was in favor of using examples in the new bylaw for what could warrant a recall.
“I think by putting some general examples sets the intent so 25 years from now people don’t say, ‘What the heck were they thinking when they were doing that?’ At least they get some guidance for what our intent was,” he said.
In terms of election numbers, Barry said the town has roughly 11,000 voters and an average of around 1,000 have voted in the prior three town elections.
While no action was required at the meeting, Barry agreed to iron out a more formal bylaw proposal following the night’s discussion to be further discussed at the next meeting before it is sent to town counsel.
The Belchertown Select Board next met on April 11 and coverage of that meeting will appear in the April 21 edition of The Reminder.