This fall, Westwood's Government and Charter Study Task Force will be continuing its efforts to update the town's charter for the first time in more 30 years. The members of Task Force, who were first appointed October of last year, were reappointed by the Westwood Board of Selectmen at the end of June. At the same time, the commission's operations were extended by another year.

Before going on hiatus for the summer, the commission submitted a summary report to the selectmen. "The biggest conclusion is that we think, at the very minimum, the charter should be updated to reflect the way that the town works today," said Commission Chair Peter Cahill.

The Task Force studied all branches of Westwood government and found that the town had outgrown its decades-old charter.

"A good example is the finance department," said Cahill, speaking to the changes his commission hopes to enact. "The finance department, from what we envisioned in the 1970s, is a lot different today. How it functions in the town government is a lot more complex."

Since last October, the Task Force has focused its efforts on discovering what major revisions were needed. In doing this, members met with "representatives of all major stakeholders" at the state and local level, as well as representatives of other towns' governments, said Cahill.

They also made an effort to gather input from concerned Westwood residents during a packed open forum.

There are two ways through which the town could revise their charter based on the Task Force's findings, said Cahill.

The first would require that a petition be presented to selectmen asking for a new or revised town charter. The charter would then be brought before Town Meeting for debate. The final version of the charter would have to be ratified by the state legislature.

The second would require that the town place a referendum on the next election, asking voters whether or not the town should adopt a new charter. This method would take more time, cautioned Cahill, since a new charter committee would have to be appointed through popular election. They would then submit a report to the attorney general and bring the final charter before town voters for approval.

The town could also begin by changing the charter one small piece at a time rather than overhauling the whole thing. "You can just tinker with the charter and have amendments at the town meetings that are not too controversial," said Cahill.

Town administrators made attempts to revise the charter in the mid-1980s, but their attempts were derailed when debate arose over how to address a series of controversial issues. This time around, commission members don't foresee the same problem: "The whole point of this has been to have a format where anybody interested can tell us what they think now," said Cahill.

"The process has been public and I'm sure it will elicit more feedback when there actually is something out there for public consumption in terms of an actual document," he continued. "But that's good. I think that's healthy."