Council votes 9-3 to accept free publication of charter report
Town Council · Meeting of July 27, 2026
New Canaan council votes 9-3 to publish full Charter Revision Commission report for free. The Town Council accepted the Sentinel newspaper's unsolicited offer to print the commission's 75-page final report at no cost, over objections from members Kim Norton, Christina Ross and Heather Russell, who argued state statute only requires the charter text itself. Council member Eric Tunem said Town Counsel Birch Moses advised that publishing the full report, not just the amended charter, is "best practice," a position the council followed on a unanimous voice vote.
Charter Revision Commission representative Kathleen said printing 250 hard copies would cost about $3,375, already budgeted, separate from the Sentinel's free offer. Ross countered, "It's a matter of what is required to be published. I'm not trying to hide the report." The report reflects the council's July 15 rejection of a proposed term-limits amendment, one of seven recommendations sent to voters ahead of a November ballot vote.
In the full story:
- Who Was There
- Organizations And Documents Referenced
- The complete report — 1,867 words
Source: the Town Council meeting of July 27, 2026, reported from the official video recording and transcript.
The Full Article
Roll Call and Call to Order
The Town Council convened a special meeting Monday, July 27, 2026, specifically to resolve a single item: how to publish the Charter Revision Commission's final report ahead of a November ballot vote on the proposed charter amendments. Twelve members were called to the roll: Janet Bond, Lena Lee, Mike Morrow, Maria Naughton, Kim Norton, Hillary Ormond, Mike Rogers, Christina Ross, Heather Russell, Eric Tunem, Annie Young and Jennifer Zonas. A quorum was declared and the meeting proceeded directly to the charter publication item after the pledge of allegiance.
Background and Stakes
The item existed because the council could not resolve, by email, a dispute over what Connecticut statute requires when a charter revision commission's work goes to publication before a ballot vote. Members had been trading emails since a prior meeting, and the presiding member opened the discussion by noting that because "action is required from the town council, we needed to convene an actual meeting" rather than settle it informally.
The Publication Debate: Full Report vs. Charter Text Only
The question before the council was narrow but consequential: does the town publish only the amended charter text, as Christina Ross argued the statute requires, or the Charter Revision Commission's entire report, including its process, discussion and vote record, as other members argued was best practice and precedent.
Ross laid out two objections. First, she said the council approved a final charter document on June 15 that was later altered, which she said conflicts with the statutory requirement that an accepted document stand as final. Second, she objected to the Sentinel newspaper being asked to publish the report without payment, saying "we should be able to pay for it. This is a wealthy community. We don't need subsidies," and that pressuring a small outlet to run political material for free compromises its ability to remain neutral toward either side of the ballot question.
Eric Tunem disagreed with her characterization of what the council had approved, saying the June document was "a draft final report, which was subsequently amended," not a finished, binding charter. He said the statute's requirement is to publish either the full proposed charter or the specific sections being amended, together with notice, but that Town Counsel Birch Moses had advised the council that best practice is to publish the commission's full report. "I happen to believe that the report of the Charter Revision Commission is their report," Tunem said, adding that trimming it risks unanswerable questions from residents about what was left out and why. He proposed publishing the full report with a summary of the council-endorsed amendments up front.
A member identified in the meeting only as Penny said selectively publishing the report would be "kind of hypocritical" given the council's frequent invocation of transparency. Kim Norton, while calling the commission's work "a wonderful report," said her preference was a concise summary report with the full document held at the town clerk's office for residents who wanted it, noting the 2016 report ran 59 pages against what she initially understood to be 95 pages this year. Jennifer Zonas said her inclination was simply to follow 2016 precedent, when the full report was printed. Maria Naughton agreed, saying "if the attorney say it's best practice... we can't tell people what to read or not to read, but if it's available, everyone make their own choice." Council member Annie Young, not otherwise named by first name alone in the transcript, argued that no member of the council could claim to know what the broader public wants to read, and that publishing the full report was the only defensible course.
Ross responded that the debate was not actually about transparency, since the full report could always be made available online separately; it was about what the statute obligates the town to print at public expense, and about letting residents focus on what they will actually be voting on. "It's a matter of what is required to be published. I'm not trying to hide the report," she said.
Kathleen's Rebuttal: Page Counts, Cost and Precedent
Kathleen, presenting on behalf of the Charter Revision Commission, corrected several figures in play. She said the report is 75 pages, not the 95 pages Kim Norton had cited from her tablet, a discrepancy that surfaced live in the meeting when Norton and another member found their devices displaying different page counts (95 and 73 respectively) for what was supposed to be the same document. Kathleen attributed the gap to formatting differences between devices rather than substantive content changes.
She said the current report is longer than the 59-page 2016 report primarily because this year's commission votes were not unanimous, requiring roughly four additional pages recording how the council voted on each of the panel's seven recommendations, including its rejection of a proposed term-limits provision. She also cited a 40-page report from July 13, 2005 as further precedent for publishing full commission reports when votes are contested. On cost, she said printing 250 hard copies through a printer identified as Minuteman would run about $3,375, an expense already budgeted by the commission, and that the Sentinel had volunteered on its own, without being asked, to print the report free across a dedicated section running four newspaper pages for every page of the report. "They were kind enough to offer to produce it pro bono for the whole town," Kathleen said, disputing Ross's earlier characterization that the paper had been asked to do so.
Resolving the Timeline: The Amended Filing
Several members pressed Kathleen on why an amended version of the report, dated July 19 and reflecting the council's July 15 votes on the commission's recommendations, had not been filed with the town clerk immediately. Kathleen said the original final report was filed with both the town clerk and the town council on Friday, July 10. After the council's July 15 vote rejecting the term-limits recommendation, the commission added a page reflecting how the council had voted on each recommendation, since releasing a report that did not note the rejection would have been misleading. Council member Heather Russell pressed for clarity on when a document becomes official once filed with the clerk's office, since that filing is what makes it publicly accessible, and Kathleen confirmed the amended version would be filed there as well, dated to reflect the council's July 15 and 19 actions.
Three Votes: Sentinel's Offer, the Report, and Publication
The council ultimately took up the matter as three separate motions, a structure proposed mid-discussion once members recognized they were conflating the question of what to publish with how and at what cost.
The first motion, to accept the Sentinel's offer to publish the commission's July 19, 2026 final report free of charge, passed by roll call, 9-3. Kim Norton, Christina Ross and Heather Russell voted no; the remaining nine members present voted yes. Before the vote, several members debated whether a vote was even necessary, since the printed hard copies were already a budgeted town expense separate from the newspaper's free offer; the presiding member ultimately called the roll to formalize acceptance of the Sentinel's specific offer.
The second motion, to approve the July 19, 2026 final report from the Charter Revision Commission as amended, was seconded by Maria Naughton and passed on a voice vote with no dissent recorded.
The third motion, to approve publication of the July 19, 2026 final report in its entirety, was seconded by Eric Tunem and passed unanimously on a voice vote.
During the discussion, Christina Ross also raised a separate point about the New Canaanite, a local outlet that offered to post a QR code linking to a digital version of the report. She said the New Canaanite does not qualify as a "newspaper with general circulation" for purposes of the statutory publication requirement, a point other members did not dispute, though they noted the outlet's link would still be available to residents alongside the Sentinel's coverage and the town's own website.
Implications and What Is Next
With the publication votes settled, the Charter Revision Commission's full 75-page report, including the council's amendment reflecting its rejection of term limits, will now be printed by the Sentinel at no cost to the town and made available in 250 hard copies at the town clerk's office, the library and the Lapham Community Center ahead of the November ballot vote on the charter amendments.
Janet Bond, Town Council member, present at roll call. Lena Lee, Town Council member, present. Mike Morrow, Town Council member, present. Maria Naughton, Town Council member, present; seconded the motion to approve the July 19 final report. Kim Norton, Town Council member, present; voted no on accepting the Sentinel's free-publication offer. Note: called "Ken Norton" at the initial roll call but referred to as "Kim" throughout discussion and in the vote recap. Hillary Ormond, Town Council member, present. Mike Rogers, Town Council member, present. Christina Ross, Town Council member, present; voted no on the Sentinel offer and led the case for publishing only the charter text. Heather Russell, Town Council member, present; voted no on the Sentinel offer. Eric Tunem, Town Council member, present; seconded the final publication motion. Annie Young, Town Council member, present. Jennifer Zonas, Town Council member, present. Kathleen, Charter Revision Commission representative, presented the commission's final report and answered council questions on cost, page count and filing history; surname not given in the transcript. Birch Moses, Town Counsel, cited by Eric Tunem as the source of the "best practice" advice to publish the full report; did not speak directly in the portion of the meeting transcribed. Peter, referenced as being "on the line" and providing the approximately $3,375 printing cost estimate; role and surname not given in the transcript. A member referred to only as Penny spoke in favor of publishing the full report on transparency grounds; surname not given. The meeting's presiding member, addressed by other speakers as "Mike," ran the agenda and called votes; surname not distinguishable in the transcript because two council members share that first name (Morrow and Rogers).
Charter Revision Commission (CRC) — the town body that drafted the proposed charter amendments and the final report at the center of the meeting's publication dispute. The Sentinel — local newspaper that volunteered to print the commission's full 75-page report free of charge across a dedicated section of the paper. The New Canaanite — local outlet offering a QR-code link to a digital version of the report; Christina Ross noted it does not meet the statutory definition of a newspaper of general circulation. Minuteman — printing vendor selected through a bid process to produce 250 hard copies of the final report at an estimated cost of $3,375. July 19, 2026 final report — the amended version of the Charter Revision Commission's report, incorporating the council's July 15 votes on the commission's seven recommendations, approved and ordered published at this meeting. 2016 Charter Revision Commission report (59 pages) and July 13, 2005 report (40 pages) — cited repeatedly as precedent for publishing commission reports in full.