Public Comment: Charter Review Was So Flawed It Requires a Redo

The following public comment was submitted in writing to the Amherst Town Council for their meeting of January 10, 2025.

My name is Darcy DuMont and I live in District 3. I’m commenting on the Charter Review Final Report as a former councilor and former member of the League of Women Voters of Amherst Charter Review Task Force.

The processes used by the Town Council and the Charter Review Committee as part of the 2024 Charter review were so flawed as to render it invalid as I’ll detail below. I strongly recommend either a redo of the whole process or at a minimum, a charter amendment to require Charter Review every 5 years.

On the Charter Review Final Report
On the Charter Review Committee final report, I strongly urge the council to treat the 22 recommendations and the suggestions to improve Amherst Government equally, as the report itself requests.  And because the process lacked transparency, consistency and fairness in the way votes were taken.

On Recommendations Rejected by the Charter Review Committee
I also strongly urge the council to consider recommendations rejected at the [Charter Review Committee’s] retreat that did not make it into the report at all as either recommendations or suggestions to improve Amherst Government.  See those preceded by a red block here.

On Councilor Hanneke’s Proposal to Refer Recommendations
I urge that charter discussions be held and decisions made in meetings of the full council, rather than after referrals to standing committees, since issues will have to be discussed with the full council in any event. Also, the fact that the president appoints the standing committees gives her unfair advantage over the outcome of standing committee recommendations. And meetings of the full council are more accessible to the public when issues of great public interest and import are being decided as in the charter review.

An opinion from counsel on any legal issues can be made directly to the full council. I hope you will request independent counsel for items which are controversial.

No recommendations need to be referred to the Town Manager. 

On How the Council Contributed to the Flawed Charter Review Process
The former council president and council majority conspired to influence the recommendations of the Charter Review Committee by manipulating multiple processes that would result in the appointment of friends or close allies of the former Council President or the Town Manager.

[Council President Lynn] Griesemer appointed only allies to the GOL committee in January of 2024 (who would be making the appointments to the Charter Review Committee.) (Herself and Councilors Ana Devlin-Gauthier, George Ryan, Pat DeAngelis, and Freke Ette)

Councilors Griesemer and Ryan conspired to get ally and former Charter Commissioner Andy Churchill on the Charter Review Committee by recommending a requirement in the selection guidance that the committee include a member who had developed a charter.

The GOL committee decided that “Diversity of opinion” should not be included in the selection guidance for the Charter Review Committee.

The council delayed seating the Charter Review Committee until late September, 2025.

GOL didn’t fill the vacancy on the committee when one came up in January, 2025, despite having applicants in the pool. (GOL had little incentive to fill it as the vacancy gave the council majority a majority on the committee.)

Anita Sarro and I, former applicants for the committee, were not contacted that we needed to reapply for the vacated seat until very late in the process.

The council also didn’t provide the basic support for the committee of budgeting for a consultant or getting a consultant on board for the committee.

On How the Charter Review Committee Contributed to the Flawed Process
Note: Chair Julian Hynes urged the committee to do much of the outreach noted below which they ultimately did not do.

The committee never established principles on which they were making decisions,

The committee didn’t send a survey to the public as they discussed at length, because they were afraid it would be “leading”.

The committee didn’t do outreach to local groups last winter and spring as they said they would do very early on.

The committee didn’t provide a survey of specific questions for the town council and staff, but instead asked open-ended questions which did not get a response.

The committee failed to give any weight to the League of Women Voters Amherst LWVA) survey and 200 comments gathered, or the LWVA recommendations, as the only organization with the mission of good government in Amherst.

The committee didn’t even acknowledge at all in its report the two years of study, work, provision of resources and recommendations of the LWVA.

The committee had three very poorly advertised and attended listening sessions with the public in late June and July 2025. Two were in person and one was virtual. 

The committee assigned the four white men who are allies of the former council president to do the substantive work of the committee, organizing the recommendations. 

The committee voted on recommendations at a retreat on September 9, 2025, using this list of 200 individual suggestions, many of which ended up being final recommendations.

There is neither a recording nor minutes of the retreat.

The recommendations were voted on at the retreat without any indication of rationales for the large majority of the suggestions, as you can see in the rationale column of this list.

Many of the recommendations were read for the first time at the retreat  (all those that would be additions to the Charter).

The committee had one business day to review the list of 200 suggestions before voting on September 9.

The committee decided not to indicate the level of support each recommendation had received in its listing of recommendations to be voted on.

The committee still does not have “approved minutes” of any meeting linked on its website.

The only official public forum was held on December 16, 2025, deep in the holiday season, with about ten attending. 

The process for finalizing the recommendations was severely rushed.

Thanks goes to Chair Julian Hynes, who was often a lone voice, for his gracious chairmanship of the committee in the face of a lot of resistance from members. Julian persisted in making additions to the final report that will ensure that the council and public hear a large number of the concerns that were made by residents.