Malden Council votes unanimously to send home rule petition, ordain related ordinances

The Malden City Council voted unanimously May 1 to adopt a home rule petition asking the Massachusetts Legislature to strike several sections of the Malden City Charter and to ordain a package of related city ordinances that will relocate those provisions into the Malden City Code.

Councilor John Winslow, chair of the Charter Review Committee, told the council the work stretches back years and reflects an effort to remove antiquated charter language and replace operational details with ordinances. “We decided that it was more straightforward to really just strike some sections and work on improving the organization of the city and the ordinances,” Winslow said.

The action follows a public hearing at which no members of the public spoke in favor and one letter in opposition was read into the record from Friends of the Fellsmeir Heights. The letter asked the council to retain the existence of certain commissions in the charter and to preserve historical charter language; the group also criticized the city’s public outreach for the changes. The council’s committee reviewed the letter and recommended approval with one amendment to add language to a whereas clause protecting powers vested by the legislature.

Winslow said the city solicitor’s office reviewed the transition and concluded that substantive authorities would not be lost when provisions move from the charter into ordinances. He also said the committee concluded that leaving only titles in the charter would not meaningfully preserve powers and that links to prior charter versions could preserve historical information.

On a motion to ordain the enrolled ordinances, the council voted 11–0 in favor; later the council approved the home rule petition as amended by unanimous roll call. Council President Ryan O’Malley presided and the clerk recorded the roll calls.

The ordinances being adopted implement changes for entities and functions including the parks and recreation commission, public works and engineering functions, police and fire department authorities, and replacing the traffic commission with a transportation commission, among other reorganizations. The council and the administration will forward the home rule petition to the state legislature for consideration.

Council leaders said the ordinance changes will take effect only if the Legislature approves the home rule petition. Winslow and other councilors also urged that if any significant authority was inadvertently omitted in the transition, the council reserve the right to address it in follow-up legislation or ordinance action.

The council’s action follows multiple committee meetings since 2017 and a prior charter modernization enacted in 2018 that committee members said exposed many antiquated provisions in the 1881 charter. Councilors thanked city staff, the city clerk and the mayor’s office for work on the drafts and the clean enrolled version that the council voted on.

The council did not take further related actions at the meeting and moved on to other business.