By Tim Loh
Staff Writer
BRIDGEPORT — In its inaugural meeting Tuesday night, the city’s charter review commission elected three officers, set a tentative schedule for its ambitious look at Bridgeport’s constitutional document, and posed several questions to three attorneys who’ll guide the commission’s work in coming months.
As chairwoman, the seven-member panel voted Cathleen Simpson, a Black Rock resident, Democrat and attorney who works for the state Office of Policy and Management’s Labor Relations section.
George Estrada, a Republican, former Bridgeport public facilities director and current vice president of Facilities Planning and Construction at the University of Bridgeport, was voted vice chairman.
Florisca Carter, an unaffiliated voter and director of school operations for Achievement First Bridgeport Academy, was voted secretary. Her duties in that post remained unclear as the meeting closed, though. A stenographer is already keeping track of everything the panel discusses.
The commission will hold a public forum next Tuesday at 5:30 p.m. in the city council chambers. It will reconvene the next night, and then likely meet publicly every Tuesday and Thursday at 5:30 p.m.
City Attorney Mark Anastasi introduced attorneys Ed Maley and Steven Mednick, who’ve each worked on charter revisions around Connecticut as well as with the city attorney’s office for years on various projects. Mednick will draft the commission’s final recommendations in late spring.
The commission could enact big changes over how Bridgeport manages its schools. It will also conduct a comprehensive review of the city charter for the first time since 1993 — maybe even 1984 or 1978, depending on how widespread its proposed changes are, Anastasi said Tuesday.
In coming months, the commission will ask city council members, Mayor Bill Finch, department heads and experts of various fields how the current charter should be altered. It will submit final recommendations to the Secretary of State’s office by September, so that the potential changes land on November’s ballot for a “yes or no” vote. First, the suggestions must be cleared by the city council, which should see a draft of the proposed changes by May, Mednick said.
While the education debate could be heated, the attorneys said Tuesday that other issues may unexpectedly turn hot under the public’s microscope.
In the late ‘90s, Mednick helped a commission in New Britain review a charter that hadn’t been touched since before the Vietnam War, he recalled Tuesday. After much work, the recommendations were torpedoed by a veteran’s group that didn’t want its legal standing moved under the city’s code of ordinances.
So the city charter lived on — and with it the requirement that the veteran’s group include someone who fought in the Spanish-American War, back in 1898.
