It was disheartening to read Wareham Charter Review Committee Chair Alan Slavin comment that the committee would "continue to work on the existing charter and make modifications to it" after the committee's suggested change in the form of Wareham's government was voted down by Town Meeting.

Disheartening because I read in that statement a continued lack of willingness to do what Section 7: 1 (b) of the charter asks the Charter Review Committee to undertake: a review. Once again, it sounds like ‘modifications' are a foregone conclusion with no input from those who rely on the charter each day to do the business of the town.

In 1999, I served as a member of the previous Charter Review Committee. We immediately decided that, prior to discussing our individual ideas about potential changes to the existing charter, we should first hear from those who serve under it.

To accomplish this, we invited the Board of Selectmen, the Town Moderator, members of every town department and all the standing boards and committees to speak freely with us about what they felt worked and what didn't. We also interviewed members of the original Charter Review Commission.

Next, although our weekly meetings were open to the public, we held additional input meetings in East Wareham, Onset and West Wareham, asking citizens to comment on anything they had questions or concerns about as they reviewed the charter.

Finally, our Chair also formed subcommittees to take on specific research, conduct interviews with other towns and report back.

It was only after this exhaustive collection of data that we sat down as a full committee and methodically worked through the suggestions and ideas to see what would logically benefit and strengthen the document and improve our form of government.

In other words, we reviewed.

That process yielded 13 or so recommended changes, at least 10 of which - the Deputy Moderator, the appointed rather than elected Town Collector, for instance - continue today.

The current Charter Review Committee has a little over five months to go back to the drawing board and solicit input, review the charter, and gauge whether modifications are in order. This is very little time indeed to methodically review as we did in 1999-2000.

I for one would welcome a chance to speak with any of the current members about our existing charter and some of the ideas we had then and that were suggested to our committee that we were not able to pursue at the time.

Cindy Parola
Maple Springs Road