Morristown voters approved first charter; Legislature probes manager-delegation language in H.17

Morristown voters approved the town’s first charter by a 5-to-1 margin, and the House Government Operations & Military Affairs Committee spent part of its hearing on H.17 scrutinizing a provision that lets the town manager authorize department heads to hire, appoint, discipline or remove employees under the manager’s supervision.

The measure — H.17, the act relating to approval and adoption of the charter of the town of Morristown — was presented to the committee on testimony from town officials and their counsel. Chris Palermo, vice chair of the Morristown Select Board, told the committee that the charter committee and select board deliberately used language from other municipal charters, including wording taken from Waterbury’s charter, to keep the document “simple and straightforward.” He summarized local support for the charter and explained the contested manager-delegation sentence, saying it is meant to allow the manager and department heads to work together on personnel decisions.

"By giving the manager the ability to authorize a…