Milford council approves series of measures including charter amendment and infrastructure funding; votes at a glance

The Milford City Council on April 28 approved several measures affecting personnel policy, municipal charter language and city infrastructure.

Council action at a glance: 1) Adopted Ordinance 2025-007 (personnel manual amendment to permit remote work during emergency conditions). Vote: 8-0. 2) Authorized sending an amended charter-change proposal to state legislators that removes the phrase limiting eminent-domain restrictions to “outside of city limits,” thereby applying the restriction to inside and outside the city for recreational purposes. Vote: 8-0. 3) Approved a change order of $500,000 to contract 2023EN/ST-002 (2024 utility and street rehabilitation with Eastern States Construction) to add several road and drainage projects. Vote: 8-0. 4) Authorized a sole-source purchase order of $75,000 for a chlorine scrubber system at the Tenth Street Water Treatment Plant. Vote: 8-0. 5) Approved rehabilitation work on Well 3R at a total cost of $77,720 to come from the operations and maintenance budget (O&M). Vote: 8-0. 6) The board of elections certified the April 26 special election results for the Milford water utility project funding: For 135, Against 21, total votes 157 (1 undervote, 0 rejected absentee ballots). 7) Council rescinded motions related to the city manager recruitment made after March 24 and directed a new recruiter-led evaluation and second-round interview process for candidates identified as meeting qualifications; the rescission and the follow-up motion passed, 8-0.

Motions, titles and outcomes are recorded in the official minutes; roll-call tallies were recorded as unanimous (8-0) for the formal votes listed above. Several items had substantive discussion (the charter change and the 2024 utility/street rehabilitation change order); other items were introduced by staff with limited public comment before votes were taken.

The actions provide immediate direction to staff: the personnel manual amendment becomes city policy per the adopted ordinance; the charter-language change will be transmitted to state legislators for consideration; the public-works change order and water-system purchases will proceed under council authorization; and the board of elections certification completes the special-election process for the water utility funding proposal.

Details on debate, context and next steps for each item are included in separate council-report articles.