MONTICELLO, NY — The Sullivan County Charter Commission is beginning its examination of the county’s charter, which lays out the basic details of the county government. The commission is tasked with recommending possible updates and changes to the charter to the county legislature, which then may consider making those changes or not.

The last time the county went through this process, the commission’s work lasted more than two years. At a meeting at the government center on February 18, members of the commission discussed how the county came to adopt the current form of government, which involves a legislature and a manager.

Before the current charter was adopted in 1994, the county had a board of supervisors comprised of the supervisors of the 15 towns in the county. The votes of the supervisors were weighted, and therefore, if the supervisors of the three most populous towns—Liberty, Monticello and Fallsburg—agreed on a certain matter, their votes could outweigh the votes of the other 12.

Paul Burkhard, who is a member of the current commission, and who was also a member of the original commission, said there were threats of lawsuits over the one-person-one-vote issue, and ultimately voters decided to adopt a legislature.

Stephen Acquario, the executive director of the New York State Association of Counties, addressed the members of the commission, and said there are still more than 20 counties out of 57 outside of New York City that maintain boards of supervisors governments.

Commission member Bill Liblick said that many people in the county say the county would be better off if it reverted to a board of supervisors.

Acquario said, “I’ve never seen that happen. I always thought you couldn’t do it. [County attorney Sam Yasgur said it could.] I don’t remember why I think that, maybe because all of the towns would have to approve that, and it would be very disruptive to governmental functions and create lots of confusion.”

Acquario said there are 23 counties with charters. Eighteen of those have elected county executives and five, including Sullivan, have appointed county managers or administrators.

He said Montgomery County, with a population of about 50,000—as compared with Sullivan’s 74,000—was the latest county to adopt the country executive model in 2012. The vote there passed with a healthy margin after being defeated three earlier times. He noted it is a bit unusual to have an elected county executive in a county with such a small population.

Legislator Cora Edwards noted that a previous charter commission suggested that the county should change to have an elected counted executive, but the legislature rejected the idea, and the matter was dropped.

It was noted that if pro-county executive advocates managed to secure enough signatures on a petition, the legislature could be circumvented and brought to a public referendum.

On another matter, all nine Sullivan County legislators are up for election again this November, and Acquario was asked if he thought it was a good idea to have all nine run for election at the same time. He said in his opinion it would be better for the terms to be staggered, and that the best way to pursue that change would be through the charter amendment process.

Such a change however would mean in some future election some of the legislators would be running for a term that was two years rather than four years, and it’s not clear how lawmakers would react to that.

Burkard said that when the first commissioner created the charter it was never envisioned that all nine legislators would be defeated at the same time. In the last election, six new members were voted into office.

Edwards brought up the point that some of the authority of the legislators contained in the initial charter has been “delegated” to department heads or the manager over the years, and sometimes it’s difficult for her to find out information she wants to know.

Acquario said the board has the power to delegate many responsibilities, but if that has been done and it’s not working as it should, the board has the power to reverse that delegation through resolution.

The next meeting of the charter commission will be held on March 25.