Montgomery County Charter

Revised Legislative District Maps:

Revised Legislative District Maps

Charter Commission Completes Its Work:

After an intensive period of weekly meeting and 3 public meetings, the Montgomery County Charter Commission held its last meeting on Wednesday, July 11, 2012. The Commission finalized the draft County Charter and voted unanimously to send it on to the County Board of Supervisors for their review.

Adopted Charter (PDF)
White Paper on County Charter (PDF) - by Orrie Eihacker (Charter Commission member)
Q and A on County Charter (PDF) - by Orrie Eihacker
Final Countywide 9 Legislative District Map (PDF)
Final 9 Legislative District Map of City Area (PDF)

Background:

During the last 25 years or so, the Montgomery County Government appointed County Administrators to act as an executive leader to oversee the day to day operations of County Departments. The good intentions of this system unfortunately failed due to personality conflicts and differences of styles between the County Board of Supervisors (legislators) and the County Administrator.

In 2011, Town of Glen Supervisor, Larry Coddington initiated a proposal to bring back the position of County Administrator (sometimes called County Executive or Manager), either appointed or elected and to consider changing the County’s legislative system from the current 15 Supervisors (10 Town and 5 City of Amsterdam) to a lesser number of district representatives. His efforts led to the creation of a County Government Study Committee, which met 3 times in early 2012. The work of the Study Committee led to a decision to create a Charter Commission to more fully study and create a legal document to make changes to the County Government.

On March 27, 2012, the Montgomery County Board of Supervisors passed a resolution establishing a County Charter Commission, whose mission was to create a County Charter Law to create significant changes to county government. The Charter Commission was made up of 10 county citizens, who met twice a month and delivered the draft Charter to the Board of Supervisors.

There were 2 major issues the Charter Commission decided upon:

Create an elected County Executive position.
Create new legislative districts that would replace the current County Supervisor System.

Since the draft County Charter recommend establishing an elected County Executive, a voter referendum was held in the 2012 November election to approve the issue.

This website provides historical information about the work of the Charter Commission.