State legislators plan to strike down Medford’s request to expedite a review of the city’s 30-year-old charter.

Last month, Medford Rep. Paul Donato and Sen. Patricia Jehlen filed a bill on behalf of the city after the Medford City Council voted in February to petition the Legislature to establish a charter commission, bypassing a step requiring residents to obtain signatures in support of charter review.

The Home Rule Petition was approved by the council Feb. 23 in a 4-3 vote. Mayor Stephanie M. Burke also signed the petition, sending it to the State House.

But last week, the Legislature’s Joint Committee on Election Laws reported the proposed bill out of committee as “adverse,” according to the Legislature’s website.

The move means the bill will be read on the House floor as “ought not to pass,” Donato said. The action does not require a formal vote.

“For whatever reason, the chairman and members made a decision of ‘ought not to pass,’” Donato said. “Unfortunately, the issue is dead.”

Prior to the committee’s decision, Donato told the Transcript the committee’s chairman, Worcester Rep. John J. Mahoney, was skeptical of the level of community support behind the petition.

“The chairman of the commission has had some questions relative to the process and is reviewing that,” Donato said before the decision. “I think the concerns that he had were concerning the 4-3 vote on the council and the number of people who spoke in favor or opposed to charter review at the council meetings. So he’s wondering whether or not there’s a ‘groundswell.’ He wants to just make sure that there is sufficient support.”

During the council’s Feb. 23 vote, Council Vice President Breanna Lungo-Koehn and Councilors Michael Marks, John Falco and George Scarpelli voted in favor of the petition.

Council President Fred Dello Russo Jr. and Councilors Rick Caraviello and Adam Knight voted against it.

When Donato filed the petition bill last month, he requested Mahoney schedule a public hearing on the bill “as soon as possible,” according to an April 28 letter from Donato to the council.

But last week, the committee acted without holding a hearing.

“It’s a majority vote,” Marks said. “And the mayor signed it. [Mahoney] killed it anyways. After all this, he didn’t hold a hearing and he killed it anyways.

“We should have had the opportunity to get up there and make our spiel, why we support this and so forth,” Marks continued. “And for this to not get a public hearing is really a disgrace in the public process.”

Marks also questioned why the bill was referred to the Committee on Election Laws rather than the Local Affairs committee.

“It’s really not an election law — we’re asking to review our charter,” Marks said. “This is the [state] government stepping in and saying, ‘We know what’s best for the city of Medford.’”

A request to speak with Mahoney about the committee’s decision had not been returned as of the Transcript’s Tuesday afternoon print deadline.

About the bill

According to the Legislature’s website, House Bill No. 4227 would authorize the election of a nine-person charter commission on Nov. 8, the date of the presidential election. The bill would eliminate the requirement that a question be submitted to voters asking whether the current charter should be revised or another charter adopted.

Once elected in the fall, the nine-person commission would have about eight months to decide whether to recommend any revisions or amendments to the city’s current Plan A charter.

The commission would be required to submit a final report with any proposed revisions or amendments on or before June 30, 2017. Any recommended revisions or amendments would then be placed on the ballot for the Nov. 7, 2017 municipal election.

No review of Medford’s charter has taken place since 1986, when residents voted to change Medford’s form of government from a strong City Council under Plan E to Plan A, which gives the mayor more authority to run the city

What’s next?

Once the bill is read before House members and discarded, the city would have to wait until the end of the year to file another petition, if approved again by the council and mayor.

“It’s dead for this legislative year,” Marks said. “I suppose we can go back and file it again, but, I don’t know.”

Otherwise, residents would have to collect signatures from 15 percent of the city’s registered voters — about 5,300 signatures — in support of a charter review.

As of November, a resident-coordinated petition had yielded more than 1,300 signatures in support of a review.

The leading organizer behind the effort, former City Council candidate Michael Ruggiero, said earlier this year he planned to continue collecting signatures.