Senator presents enacted Senate Bill 220; Arden receives new village charter

Senator Ray Seigfried presented the Village of Arden with an official, signed copy of Senate Bill 220, which enacted the village's new charter on May 21, 2026. He thanked members of the Governance Task Force Ad Hoc Committee for three years of work and handed the signed document to Village Chair Simon Hamermesh to mark the milestone.

The presentation named the Governance Task Force members—Kate Threefoot, Steve Benigni, Barbara Macklem, Lynda Kolski, John Schefflen, Bev Clendening and Ray Seigfried—and explained the remaining steps in the state process: changes to a municipal charter must be passed by the state Senate and House and be signed by the governor to take effect. Seigfried noted the bill's enactment time as May 21, 2026, at 1:34 p.m.

Chair Simon Hamermesh accepted the charter on behalf of the assembly and thanked the task force. The recognition was presented as a formal acknowledgment of the committee's effort in updating Arden's governing documents to reflect current practice and to align local ordinances with the new charter.

Next steps outlined at the meeting included committee-level updates to ensure local ordinances conform to the charter language and public posting of the new charter and related ordinance changes in the meeting minutes and on the Village website. No formal vote on the presentation itself was required; the handover of the signed bill was ceremonial and recorded in the meeting minutes.