Saugus close to finishing charter

SAUGUS – The Charter Commission is getting closer to choosing a plan of action, but first members need to hammer out some details on choosing the criteria by which to judge a plan.The commission will meet tonight at 7 p.m. in Town Hall to work out those final details and will get a little long distance help from professor Curtis Wood of Northern Illinois University.Curtis is well versed and well published on charter issues and has served 20 years in city government. He will lend his expertise to the commission via a long-distance conference call.Chairman Peter Manoogian said he hopes the discussion results in the commission adopting performance criteria, a rating system and assigning weights to principles and factors it has developed to apply to various governmental models put forth by members.The goal of the criteria is to narrow the 16 charter ideas presented last month by the nine commissioners down to one.At its July 28 meeting, the commission agreed that important factors or criteria for any proposal to amend, modify or change the existing form of government would fall into four categories.Those categories are accountability, transparency, electoral process and accessibility.Accountability breaks into two sub-categories, organizational and financial. Transparency would transcend to assigning responsibilities, government communication, ethics and clarity of roles and duties on elected and appointed officials.The electoral process promotes mixing representation so there are at-large as well as precinct-based officials.Lastly, accessibility would allow, as an example, government to be open and accessible on multiple levels during and between elections.”The Commission wants to develop a plan that not only makes sense for Saugus and employs best practices as identified by researchers such as Professor Wood,” Manoogian said.Vice Chairman Debra Panetta said she looks forward to hearing Woods’ comments on the commission’s efforts and finishing up the criteria portion of the process.