MoCo Charter Review Commission

I am pleased to announce that this morning the Montgomery County Council appointed the members of the Charter Review Commission (CRC), and they named me as Chairperson.

The CRC examines the County Charter and all suggestions for changes, and makes recommendations to the Council which if approved appear on the ballot for vote of the citizens of our County.

It’s a little like a Constitutional Convention, but admittedly on a smaller scale and without James Madison to guide us. I have wanted to hold this position for a while and I am very proud to have been appointed to it.

I have put together a website where I collected information about the Charter that is useful to me so i could view it from any computer. This website is completely unofficial and not connected with the County government in any way, but if anyone wants to look at what I consider interesting you are welcome to do so. 

It contains the Charter, a summary of the Charter in plain English, description of issues that might be researched by the CRC, charters of other charter counties in Maryland, reports of the CRC in the past, and a lot of other information that I find useful. It’s at http:bessel.org/charter Again, it is not official and just a personal website of mine, but you are welcome to view it..

I strongly encourage all MoCo citizens to read our Charter and documents about it, and to make any suggestions you wish about revisions you think will be helpful to our county. There will also be some public hearings by the CRC and I urge everything to attend. You can reach me at besselpaulm@comcast.net with any question or comments or suggestions about the CRC and I will post any information I feel will be helpful, such as meeting announcements, at http://bessel.org/charter in addition to official announcements on the MoCo website.