Somerville council approves home-rule petition to send new charter to state; multiple supplemental ballot questions rejected

The Somerville City Council voted 9–1, with one member absent, to approve a home-rule petition that would place a proposed new city charter before the state legislature for consideration and, if approved, on a future municipal ballot.

The petition approved Friday night contains the revised charter text the council had negotiated in recent meetings and also carries an appended ballot question about giving the mayor a four-year term. Council President Pineda Neufeld presided over the remote special meeting.

The petition’s approval follows hours of debate over whether to append other, separate ballot questions to the home-rule petition. Councilors debated — and ultimately rejected — a package of proposed supplemental questions that would have separately asked voters about creating a charter office for a chief administrative officer, giving the council authority to redirect budget funds, lowering the municipal voting age, allowing noncitizen resident voting, adopting ranked-choice voting for single-seat offices and making the annual budget available to the public earlier.

Councilor Scott, who introduced most of the supplemental questions, framed them as a check on executive power and as issues the council had previously debated. "Is the council willing to extend to itself the same respect that it grants the executives?" Scott asked, arguing that procedures for putting questions on the ballot should apply equally to the council…