The Bristol City Council met Wednesday evening at the Board of Ed. Auditorium for a monthly meeting with very little drama. The audience was introduced to the newest member of the Bristol Fire Department Peer Support Team, Okee, a therapy and fire prevention educator dog. After all the requisite oohs and aahs, the meeting proceeded as planned.

The biggest item on the agenda was the approval of the proposed amendments to the City Charter finalized by the Charter Revision Commission in their meeting last week. The Council approved all proposals but one, the proposal to increase the membership of the City Council from six to nine members, with guaranteed minority representation and an increase to the Board of Finance from eight to eleven members. As they had signaled in a previous meeting, the councilors and Mayor Caggiano voted 6-1 to reject that proposal from going on the ballot.

The Council had sent the proposal to enlarge the membership back to the Charter Commission with a request to delete it at the end of July, and when the commission discussed the request, they decided to send it right back to the City Council as is. Interestingly enough, they sent it back in a unanimous vote, saying it deserved to be considered by the voters of Bristol.

The Council disagreed, and stated their reasons:

Jackie Olsen began the discussion with a restatement of her earlier objection, saying “I just think that we need to keep the government small and not make it any bigger. It just complicates things and I believe that everything can be resolved with numbers that we have now.”

Sue Tyler agreed with Olsen, taking a slightly different twist. “ I don’t think that it should be one hundred percent any one party affiliation, but I also don’t think increasing the numbers of city councilors is the right way to achieve that goal.” Tyler went on to say that if there were some kind of way to have representation from both sides, that would be ideal, “but I don’t think it’s by increasing the number.”

Sebastian Panioto pointed out that under the proposal, three out of four candidates would win election, so there would not be much incentive for voters to turn out to the polls. He expressed an interest in a Council at large position to be looked into in the future.

Andrew Howe’s answer was a bit ambiguous except for his conclusion. Howe said, “I agree with what Jackie (Olsen) with larger government and the choices that the public make. When this was on a ballot if that’s what they so choose, that I will get behind them and support them. Otherwise, right now I do not. I agree with rejection.”

Cheryl Thibeault was the only vote in favor of having the proposal on the ballot. She cited the ARPA Task force, which was composed of fifteen members. They split up into sub-committees and did a great job.

On the other side, Thibeault wondered if 20 people (9 councilors and 11 board members) would be unwieldy in approving the budget. Nonetheless she concluded, “We gave this to the Charter Reform Committee to look at this. They gave us a recommendation and I will vote to approve because I want to give this to the voters to decide.”

Jolene Lusitani sided with the majority, saying, “Sometimes bigger isn’t better, less government. For sure, if you have too many cooks in the kitchen, sometimes it gets really out of control.”

Finally, Mayor Caggiano weighed in. He said, “We had a really collegial experience with the Charter Revision Commision. We made a promise to them that we will impanel another Charter Commission and we did ask them to look at this. So I think they need more time.” The mayor stated that other towns about the size of Bristol do have larger legislative bodies. Danbury has 21 members, Meriden has 12 and New Britain has 15. He finished by saying that maybe a better way of doing it will be with Councilors-at-large.

The final vote was 6-1 against the proposal being on the ballot.

All the other proposals passed easily and will appear on the ballot in November for the voters to approve or reject. They are:

• To increase the term of Mayor from two to four years.

• To expand the types of punishable misconduct by elected and appointed officials and the penalties for the misconduct.

• To change the process for creation of City Council districts from the Charter to the Registrars of Voters.

• To make technical changes in the Charter in capitalization and terminology.