[C]OLCHESTER — Even without any candidate elections, voters will have plenty to decide on Town Meeting Day.
None of the eight elected positions on Tuesday’s ballot is being contested, including seats on the Selectboard and the school board.
Still, for the third year in a row, Colchester will ask voters to weigh in on a series of charter changes intended to modernize city government.
“Colchester has a very robust volunteer spirit, so the fact that we have an uncontested Selectboard race is unusual,” said Town Manager Dawn Francis.
That volunteer spirit is on display in the eight charter change questions put forward by a volunteer government operations committee. They’ve worked for several years with town employees and the selectboard to improve the city charter, Francis said.
The first would eliminate the grand juror, an archaic position that historically had limited law enforcement authority, according to a recent Seven Days report.
“The grand juror position is obsolete now that you have police and district attorneys,” Francis said.
The next question would require the selectboard to post all its policies online, a measure Francis said is aimed at promoting transparency and modernizing town government.
Another item would increase the amount of money the town can use for an emergency, such as a washed road or collapsed bridge, from $250,000 to $500,000 and remove the requirement for that expenditure to be approved by Australian ballot.
The next question places ordinance enforcement in the town manager’s purview and requires they be terminated for cause — a term with a legal definition — and a move meant to shield the town from liability should it ever need to fire its manager.
The remaining items relate to codifying existing multi-year capital budgeting and a conflict of interest policy for town employees and elected officials.
Voters will also be asked to approve a $39 million school budget that represents a 3.22 percent increase over last year.
The proposed town budget of $12.5 million is a 2.4 percent increase over the previous year. It provides largely the same services, Francis said, but to a growing population.
Correction: The school budget increase is 3.22 percent, not 6 percent. The 6 percent figure refers to the per equalized pupil spending increase.