New Canaan town council adopts revised bylaws, deletes election sentence

The New Canaan Town Council adopted revised council bylaws on Oct. 15, approving the Oct. 8, 2025 version with one deletion that removes a sentence about voter limits at municipal elections.

Council members said the sentence — which read, “at any such election, no elector shall vote for more than 6 members to serve for the same term” — belongs in state statute or the town charter rather than in council rules and could cause confusion if left in the bylaws. "This is in the statutes; the rules of how the election process goes. It has no business on the town council because we follow the statutes," Councilmember Tom Butterworth said during debate.

Councilmembers discussed the placement of procedural election language and whether the charter, which may change, is the proper home for those instructions. After a short discussion and a second to the motion, the council took a roll call vote and the motion passed unanimously.

The adopted text is the Oct. 8, 2025 document provided to councilmembers with one revision: Article 1, Section 4, second sentence removed. The council did not adopt additional substantive edits beyond that deletion.

The council did not reference an implementation timeline for publishing the revised rules; staff indicated the approved document will be posted with the council’s other governing materials.

The vote was a formal adoption of council rules and does not change town charter language or state law. Any statutory or charter changes would require separate processes.