GREENFIELD — Mayor Roxann Wedegartner has vetoed a proposed change to the city charter that impacts whether a mayor can serve as the elected chair of the Greenfield School Committee.
The proposed change, which had received a unanimous positive recommendation from the Appointments and Ordinances Committee and City Council, would exclude the mayor from being eligible to serve as the committee’s chair. This does not mean, however, a mayor would be excluded from serving as the chair in the absence of the elected chair.
In her memo to City Council, Wedegartner noted the change would create an inconsistency in the charter, in that the mayor is the seventh member of the School Committee, “with all the same power and duties as the members elected by the voters.”
“In practice, that makes the mayor a voting member, and, presumably eligible to be elected to be chair of the committee by its members,” she wrote.
And in all likelihood, Wedegartner added, most mayors would not choose to be chair, given the “complexities and responsibilities” of both jobs. She noted that she declined a nomination in 2020 to serve as chair during the reorganization meeting.
City Council will need to vote this month on whether to override the mayor’s veto.
According to Article 8 of the city charter, a periodic review of the charter happens every year ending in zero. In June 2020, seven members — City Council President Sheila Gilmour, then-Precinct 7 Councilor Otis Wheeler and At-Large Councilor Christine Forgey, as well as residents David Singer, Allen Wood, John Lunt and Erin Donnelley Drake — were appointed to the Charter Review Committee.
After an extensive study, the Charter Review Committee finished its work in April 2021 and presented its findings in a report to the Appointments and Ordinances Committee that June. While this article did not receive a particular recommendation from the committee, it did receive a positive recommendation from the Appointments and Ordinances Committee to add language to the charter that excluded the mayor from serving as chair.
At last month’s Appointments and Ordinances Committee meeting, Forgey said that on one side of the debate, there was concern the mayor would not be an equal member of the School Committee if the mayor’s opportunity to be elected chair is limited.
“The other side was that if the mayor was the chair, there was a lot of power that was being consolidated in being a chair,” Forgey said.
She noted several members of the public who spoke on this article were against the mayor being eligible to serve as chair. Members who were at last month’s Appointments and Ordinances Committee meeting were largely in agreement that it would be a consolidation of power.
Precinct 2 Councilor Dan Guin, who has served as chair of the Appointments and Ordinances Committee throughout the charter review process, said he was disappointed the concerns of the mayor weren’t raised earlier in the process.
“We sent the recommendations to the School Committee and asked for opinion,” Guin told councilors at the Committee Chairs meeting Tuesday night. “They had time to submit written opinion on the proposed changes. … If (Wedegartner is) a sitting member of the School Committee, she’s aware that it was happening and it didn’t come forward. That was the time it should have been discussed.”
The topic was on last month’s School Committee agenda but was tabled to a date when there would be more time to discuss.
“The charter is a dynamic document,” School Committee Chair Amy Proietti said by phone Wednesday. “We can change it at any time. The review process is something we need to make sure we’re not missing anything.”
On Tuesday, Guin explained that for the city to send charter changes to the Legislature for approval, the mayor must sign off on them.
“So if the mayor doesn’t agree, then it stops,” he said. “We have to get the buy-in from the mayor on our changes or they don’t go forward anyway.”
City Clerk Kathy Scott confirmed that for the changes to be considered at the state level, they would need approval by both the executive and legislative body.
“By virtue of a veto, the mayor does not agree that it should be made,” Scott said, adding that even if the council were to override the veto and uphold (the City Council) vote, the Legislature would not consider it because both parties don’t agree on it.
She said if there is any room for councilors to work with the mayor on a change both could agree on, that would be acceptable.
Forgey noted that the political value of overriding a veto is that it “sends a message.”
“Even if full council went and voted to override … the state is not going to implement the change,” Forgey said. “The state will receive the history that it was voted on and vetoed and voted on again, and the result of that is made public.”
She said while it seems like an exercise in futility because the outcome will be the same, “it will deliver what the people in Greenfield and the people working on charter changes heard from people in Greenfield” about the change.
“There’s a political element to it as well,” Forgey said.
Reporter Mary Byrne can be reached at mbyrne@recorder.com or 413-930-4429. Twitter: @MaryEByrne