The Charter Review committee’s imperative and mandate

A Charter Review selection committee has been chosen. The long and complex process of examining the city charter and the likelihood of making some changes in its composition has begun.

There should be no bickering in doing the right thing that leads to the proper make-up of the ultimate Charter Review Committee.

Political agendas must be jettisoned at the start of the process in order to keep it pristine and free of political motives that go way beyond the notion of charter review.

Nothing is more important to the well being of this city’s legal standing and administration than naming a group of qualified residents to engage in free discourse about the charter and what must be done to change it in order to create a more worthy document by which the city runs itself.

Above all, everyone chosen needs to be reminded that Charter Review is just that – review – and that wholesale re-writing of the charter would be an invitation to disaster, inequity and political, economic and social disruption.

The reason Chelsea works so well today is because of the present city charter not in spite of it.

Some councilors who did not live in this city when it fell into receivership cannot know the level of despair brought to this community by that event.

Those who don’t remember the past – it is written – are doomed to repeat it.

We urge caution in every aspect of the charter review process.

To do otherwise is to fail.

And failure is not an option.

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