Charter Review Commission meets without quorum; schedules interviews and pushes bilingual outreach

The Reading Charter Review Commission convened but lacked a quorum and did not conduct formal votes, the chair said, moving instead to refine interview questions for city officials and to plan broader bilingual outreach.

"We do not have a quorum so that we're not going to be able to conduct any business," the chair told attendees, adding that the commission would nonetheless press forward with interviews of the mayor, managing director and city auditor and would finalize survey and outreach plans.

Commissioners spent the bulk of the meeting editing a packet of standard interview questions for council members (20 minutes per interview was proposed) and deciding which items to keep, strike or rewrite. A repeated point was that questions should focus narrowly on the council members' roles and responsibilities under the Home Rule Charter rather than on broader policy debates.

Language access and public engagement consumed significant discussion. Commissioners reviewed a 2019/2024 effort to produce a Spanish translation of the City Charter; one draft resolution quoted at the meeting said, "the English language version of the City Of Reading Charter shall always be the authoritative legal version of the City Charter." Commissioners debated whether the Spanish text should be legally certified and whether the city should rely on state-certified translators or internal legal review to resolve any discrepancies.

Members agreed to include both English and Spanish links to the charter in the survey distribution and to ask the city IT office to host official copies so the documents remain under city control. Commissioners also proposed multiple survey distribution channels — email, social media, website links and targeted distribution through multicultural agencies — to increase participation.

Public commenters at the meeting urged the commission to continue community outreach and to expand language and accessibility options beyond English and Spanish. Regina Morrison, a resident who spoke during the closing public comment, said she will "continue to come so I can get more information about things that's needed in our community" and urged the commission to bring acquaintances to future meetings.

Next steps: the commission will follow up with the city clerk and city officials about scheduling interviews, finalize the consolidated interview questions, and circulate a bilingual survey with links to both language versions of the charter. No formal actions or votes were taken at this meeting because the body lacked a quorum.