BRATTLEBORO-Every registered voter in town would be able to take part in Annual Town Meeting, held in January instead of March, and every voter would then get a yes-or-no say on the town budget at the polls in March, under a rewritten town charter proposed by the Brattleboro Charter Revision Commission.
The commission presented its recommendations to the Selectboard Oct. 6. The proposed changes will go to a townwide vote Tuesday, March 2, 2027.
The recommendations are the commission’s answer to the vote in March that ended Representative Town Meeting, the form of government Brattleboro had used since the Legislature authorized it in 1959.
At the same election, voters approved two citizen petitions: one to formally adopt open Town Meeting, and the other to adopt Australian ballot for voting on the budget.
The commission proposes doing both.
“We recommend a combined process that maintains an in-person meeting in the same format we have now and adds an automatic townwide Australian ballot vote on the General Fund budget,” the commission wrote in its memo to the Selectboard.
The five-member commission is chaired by Kate O’Connor. Maya Hasegawa is vice chair, and Joy Tournoux is clerk; Peter Elwell and Denise Glover are the other members.
The commission will hold a public informational meeting Wednesday, Dec. 2, from 6 to 8 p.m. in the main reading room of Brooks Memorial Library, 224 Main St.
At that time, commissioners will walk through their recommendations and answer questions from residents. The public is encouraged to attend.
Town Meeting would move to January, open to all voters
After voters rejected continuation of the Representative Town Meeting (RTM) in March 2026, the first open Town Meeting in decades took place the next month. But with the current town charter enshrining RTM, the revision will formally reflect what voters have already put in place.
Under the proposal, the in-person Town Meeting would no longer be limited to elected representatives. Any registered voter could attend, speak, and vote.
Otherwise, the meeting would work much as it does now. Voters would approve the budget as recommended by the Selectboard, amend it, or reject it and send it back to the board.
The meeting would move from March to the third weekend in January, leaving time for the budget to go before all voters on the Australian ballot at the March election.
A question on the General Fund budget would appear automatically on the ballot every year on the first Tuesday in March.
Under current rules, a town-wide vote on a budget passed at town meeting can only be forced by a petition signed by 5% of voters. The commission’s recommendation would remove that requirement.
The budget approved at the January meeting would be considered adopted unless at least 60% of those voting on the question in March vote to reject it.
Commissioners say the 60% threshold makes sense when the budget process is viewed as a whole. Town staff members prepare a proposed budget in late summer and early fall. The Selectboard reviews it in late fall and early winter, takes public input, and makes a recommendation.
Voters then debate it, and may change it, at the January Town Meeting. The March ballot is the fourth and final step.
“Due to the depth and breadth of the work that hundreds of people will have done on the budget by the time it reaches the final phase, we believe that the 60% threshold for rejection is appropriate because it ensures that only widespread voter dissatisfaction with the budget will cause the additional time, cost, and effort (for town government and for the community) required for budget revision and reconsideration,” reads the commission’s memo.
Commissioners acknowledge that residents, town officials, and members of the commission itself read the March 2026 results in widely different ways.
“Some Brattleboro voters would have preferred that the in-person Town Meeting have the last word. Others would have preferred that the Australian ballot vote have the last word with a simple majority threshold,” the memo states.
Commissioners say they settled on treating the March ballot as a ratification of the earlier, deliberative steps, noting that supermajority thresholds are common in ratification processes. The group has also weighed how to make the system easy for voters without adding cost and staff time for town government.
Town Attorney Bob Fisher confirmed the 60% threshold is legal, according to the commission, pointing to higher vote thresholds in some existing election laws, in the Common Interest Ownership Act, and in the state law governing reconsideration votes.
A first for Vermont
State law allows towns to vote on budgets at in-person meetings or by Australian ballot, but not both. Because the combined approach departs from state statute, it would need the Legislature’s approval as a charter change.
The commission says the process would be the first of its kind in Vermont, much as Brattleboro was when the Legislature approved its request for Representative Town Meeting in 1959.
Elected finance and human services committees
The Finance Committee and the Human Services Committee were committees of representative town meeting and were disbanded when voters ended it.
The proposed charter would bring both back with members elected by voters at the March election, “continuing the tradition of having the members chosen by the citizens,” the commission writes.
The proposal also spells out each committee’s membership, terms, role, and responsibilities.
At the request of Selectboard members and residents, the commission has added a section delineating how human services funding is to be allocated.
The commission says the language draws on public comment, input from the Human Services Committee, and the community discussion of the issue during the past few years.
New taxing authority
Also at the request of Selectboard members and the public, the commission has added language to give the town more ways to raise money.
The phrase “and taxation for the collection of revenue” would be added to the Selectboard’s powers and duties.
The wording is patterned on Rutland’s charter and was developed with help from then-Assistant Town Manager Patrick Moreland and Fisher.
Town manager would serve at will
The current charter says the Selectboard appoints the town manager and “may remove same, for cause,” which repeats state law.
The proposal, borrowing language from the town of Richmond’s charter, would make the manager an at-will employee.
The commission said several Vermont town charters already drop the “for cause” requirement, in line with the advice of the International City/County Management Association, the professional association for municipal managers.
The association recommends that a board be able to remove its manager whenever it decides the manager “is not responsive or effective in their role,” so that the community’s interests come first.
As a balance, the association also recommends that managers have employment agreements that spell out what they are owed if they are let go without cause.
The proposed charter would require such an agreement between the Selectboard and the town manager, which the commission says is already long-standing practice in Brattleboro.
Clearer rules for the Selectboard
The proposal would require the Selectboard to adopt rules of procedure every year, which is something the board already does.
It also clarifies how a board member forfeits a seat and how and when vacancies are filled. In its recommendation, the commission does not eliminate any of the board’s powers or duties. Some language was moved, added, or changed, and some was removed because the matter is no longer under the board’s control or is already covered by state law or town ordinance.
For example, the charter would no longer give the Selectboard authority over antenna and community cable television systems, which it does not control.
Cleaning up an outdated document
Brattleboro’s first charter dates to 1753, with a second in 1928 and a third in 1984. Despite amendments in 2012, 2013, 2016, and 2023, the commission said the current charter is still largely the 1984 document.
Its goal, commissioners say, was to draft a charter that accurately describes how town government works, is easy to understand, and remains accurate over time.
To that end, the proposal would:
• Remove references to Representative Town Meeting, including the 1959 act that authorized it and its rules of procedure.
• Remove the article regarding the powers and responsibilities of school directors, which no longer applies.
• Remove many citations to state law, along with passages that simply restate it. The town must follow state law regardless, the commission notes, although some citations, such as the one in the conflict-of-interest section, were kept.
• Remove the preamble, the list of committees the Selectboard appoints, the descriptions of town officers, boards and committees, and the glossary. The commission stresses that removing a position or committee from a list does not eliminate it.
• Eliminate the Capital Grants Review Board, which has never met.
• Reorganize the charter into nine articles, with new articles about general provisions, elections, and the library.
Because a change in one section can affect another, the commission says, the charter should be read as a whole.
How the commission did its work
The Selectboard appointed the commission in December 2022 and members began work in January 2023. It started with seven members; David Gartenstein resigned in 2024 and Hannah Clarisse in 2026.
The commission held 50 public meetings, both in person and via Zoom. Members reviewed the work of earlier charter commissions and the history of Representative Town Meeting, consulted the town attorney, department heads, town committees, and Selectboard members, and reviewed all 102 municipal charters approved by the Vermont Legislature.
The commission received and considered extensive public input, especially in the later stages of its work.
The recommended charter, meeting agendas, and supporting documents can be viewed on the town website at brattleboro.gov/charter-commission. Recordings of the meetings are available from Brattleboro Community Television at brattleborotv.org.
This News item by Virginia Ray was written for The Commons.