New Canaan parking commission begins charter rewrite, pauses citation appeals until ordinance clarified

The New Canaan Parking Commission on March 4 opened a multiweek review of the commission’s charter language and related ordinances, and agreed to delay hearing parking citation appeals until the town enacts a clarifying ordinance.

Steve Case, representative of the Charter Review Commission, told commissioners the town council appointed an 11-person review panel in November and asked each subteam to draft redline language. “I think it’s important to have the parking commission in the town charter,” Case said, but he urged removing operational specifics from the charter and leaving procedural detail to town ordinances.

The commission’s conversation identified a gap between the charter and town ordinances on appeal authority. Case and several commissioners noted the charter conditionally authorizes citation appeals only “if authorized by ordinance,” but said no ordinance currently assigns that authority explicitly to the parking commission. One commissioner described the appeals role as on “legally shaky ground” until the ordinance language is fixed.

To avoid legal uncertainty, members agreed to pause formal hearings on citation appeals until the ordinance amendments are drafted and adopted. The chair said staff and counsel will work on an ordinance to clarify which body may hear appeals and how appeals procedures will operate; commissioners emphasized that procedural details (for example, how handline in-person ticket inquiries are handled) should remain in ordinance language rather than the charter.

Commissioners also discussed broader charter issues that the Charter Review Commission is asking all boards to consider, including whether certain bodies should be appointed or elected, term limits, and the parking commission’s advisory role on on-street parking relative to the police commission. Case said draft redlines should be ready for commission review this month and that the Charter Review Commission expects a redraft to be submitted to the town council by May (exact date not specified).

The commission set a near-term process for completing edits: the local attorney who has been preparing markups (referred to in the meeting as John) and Chair Nancy (speaker label S1) will circulate revisions by email; a special Zoom meeting was scheduled “Wednesday the eleventh at 4 p.m.” to review markups and, if no substantive objections are raised, the commission will forward recommendations to the Charter Review Commission.

In a separate procedural vote during the meeting, commissioners approved changing the department name from the parking bureau to the New Canaan Parking Department to reflect the recent reclassification and website updates. The chair said staff will update the website and public materials to reflect the new name.

What happens next: staff and the attorney will circulate the edited charter language for internal review, the commission will meet in a special session to finalize recommendations, and council-facing redlines are expected to be delivered to the Charter Review Commission ahead of its May submission deadline. Commissioners agreed not to schedule citation appeals hearings until the ordinance explicitly sets out appeals authority and procedures.

Votes at a glance: - Motion: Adopt the name "New Canaan Parking Department" for the parking bureau. Outcome: approved by voice vote during the March 4 meeting; tally not specified in the transcript. (Mover/second not specified in the record.)

Speakers quoted or referenced in this report are identified from the meeting record and shown by role as used in the transcript (Chair; Committee members) except where a full name was introduced on the record: Steve Case, representative of the Charter Review Commission.