Voters approve charter changes

The town’s main governing document will change after Hebron voters overwhelmingly approved revisions to the town’s charter at the polls Tuesday.

A charter revision committee had worked since last fall on updating the charter document, completing proposals last June.

The amendments were approved by selectmen last August and sent to voters for approval as a question on the ballot during the municipal elections.

When election officials tabulated the results, 705 voters approved the changes, while 372 were not in favor of the revisions.

“I was very happy to see it pass,” said Jeffrey Watt, current chairman of the board of selectmen, who noted selectmen unanimously approved the revisions last summer.

A charter review committee peruses the document every five years and if necessary it proposes any needed changes.

One of the new changes in the charter pertains to emergency appropriations, essentially giving the town manager authority to handle emergency appropriations.

The old charter stated “for the purpose of meeting a public emergency threatening the lives, health or property of the town, its businesses or citizens, emergency appropriations may be made by vote of the Board of Selectmen.”

The revisions now say “for the purpose of meeting a public emergency threatening the lives, health or property of the Town, its businesses or citizens, the Town Manager or in his absence the Chairman of the Board of Selectmen shall be empowered to receive, coordinate, and facilitate a request for emergency appropriations.

Other revisions pertain to appointing successors to a vacancy on the board of selectmen, allowing appointments to wait for qualified candidates rather than filling the vacancy immediately.

They also clarifying the powers of an interim town manager if the town manager position is vacated.

Karen Strid, chairman of the charter revision committee, said last month the charter was important to the governance of Hebron and the entire document was reviewed to ensure any “necessary” changes were made.

“The Charter Revision Committee came up with good revisions and tweaked a lot of things that had come up over the last five years, with ver good input from the public,” said Watt. “I think the committee did a great job.”