In Plymouth, there will be a ballot question in May asking voters if they want a commission to be elected to revise the town charter.
The Plymouth Charter Transition Committee, or PCTC, has the required 7,136 certified signatures, meaning the Town Clerk has confirmed they’re registered voters. But those signatures have come with a price tag.
Bobbi Clark files this report:
Mike Hanlon, the treasurer, is part of the executive committee of the PCTC, a ballot question committee under state law:
“All of us are either former Town Meeting members or existing Town Meeting Members, or FinCom members or people who have been involved in town government.”
The Charter Transition Committee started gathering signatures in the spring of 2019.
“We’ve had more than 50 people who have helped us get signatures by walking around their neighborhoods or standing out around town.”
But, even with dedicated volunteers more help was required:
“We found that we needed to hire a professional signature collector. and he got twice as many signatures as we did in just a matter of weeks It wasn’t cheap, we’ve also struggled to get people to donate to the project. He’s paid basically per certified signature.”
So what would that amount to?
“It’s in the ten to twelve thousand dollar range, something like that.”
Also on the ballot for the May 15th election will be 9 candidates for the Charter Commission and Hanlon says:
“The Plymouth Charter Transition Committee cannot support any candidate for elected office.”
