Opinion by Ray La Raja

In coming weeks, Amherst leaders and residents will be debating the conclusions of the town’s Charter Review Committee (CRC), a citizen body charged with evaluating whether changes to the town’s governing document are warranted. At least one critic has argued that the CRC’s process was so deeply flawed that its work should be discarded and the review restarted. Others might be disappointed their public suggestions during the review have not been elevated to charter status. This response offers a different view: that the disagreement is not about democracy versus exclusion, but about how democratic institutions balance public participation with the capacity to govern effectively.

The Charter Review Committee (CRC) process was imperfect, but the claim that it was so flawed as to render its work invalid badly overreaches. What Ms. DuMont describes in her commentary in the Amherst Indy (“Charter Review Was So Flawed It Requires a Redo”) is not a conspiracy against democracy, but a recurring disagreement about what democracy requires. Her critique rests on the assumption that more procedures, more codification, and more mandatory participation necessarily improve democratic governance. The CRC’s report—and the experience of Amherst over the last decade—suggests the opposite.

The central problem in Amherst is not insufficient voice or transparency.

The central problem in Amherst is not insufficient voice or transparency. It is the town’s limited capacity to deliberate, decide, and act in a timely and accountable way. The CRC report correctly surfaces this tension and deserves credit for doing so, even when its conclusions are uncomfortable. Treating every suggestion, rejected proposal, or external recommendation as equivalent would not enhance democratic legitimacy; it would further dilute responsibility and overwhelm already strained institutions. 

Calls to discard the CRC’s work and restart the charter review process misunderstand the source of public frustration. Constant review and procedural churn would increase uncertainty and politicize governance even further. Stability matters. Charters are frameworks, not living rulebooks to be endlessly rewritten in response to dissatisfaction with particular outcomes. 

Nor is the charter meant to accommodate every proposal raised during a review. The CRC report notes that the UMass Boston Collins Center—an organization with extensive experience advising municipalities on charter reviews—provided guidance on which proposals rose to the level of charter-appropriate reform. The CRC members exercised judgment accordingly, devoting substantial deliberation to that distinction.

Importantly, suggestions that did not meet the charter threshold were not suppressed or ignored. They were documented and preserved in the report’s addendum, ensuring visibility without constitutionalizing procedures better handled through policy or practice. That approach reflects prudence, not exclusion.

Some critics, like DuMont, may argue that all charter-related decisions should be handled by the full council rather than delegated to standing committees.  But delegation is not a democratic flaw—it is a necessity. Standing committees exist precisely to allow focused work, reduce agenda congestion, and improve the quality of deliberation. Forcing every issue into full-council debate guarantees longer meetings, thinner discussion, and decision paralysis.

Similarly, the argument that public engagement practices—such as committee application procedures or survey instruments—should be enshrined in the Charter mistakes flexibility for weakness. Locking procedural details into the Charter would freeze current preferences in place and make future adaptation harder, not easier. Transparency can be achieved through policy and practice without constitutionalizing every process choice.

Finally, repeated accusations of bias, secrecy, and manipulation obscure a simpler truth: reasonable people on the CRC disagreed about priorities. The committee chose not to maximize participation at every stage because it recognized that participation without clear decision rules often empowers the loudest and most persistent voices, not the broader public. That is not anti-democratic; it is an attempt to preserve fair representation and governing capacity.

These questions matter now because the Town Council must decide how to act on the CRC’s recommendations—and whether to treat the report as a starting point for improvement or as evidence of institutional failure.

Amherst’s challenge is to balance civic energy with institutional effectiveness. The CRC’s report moves the conversation in that direction. Re-litigating the process or layering on additional procedural mandates would move us backward.

Ray La Raja, Professor of Political Science, University of Massachusetts, Amherst