A grassroots group continues to evaluate possible ways for Natick to rethink its town government structure to best serve a growing population with a stretched volunteer base.
Natick has not formally examined its form of government since 1980. The Natick Charter Commission Signature Committee formed in 2023 tried to change that by encouraging voters to consider putting a question on the Spring 2024 election ballot asking whether the town should consider alternatives.
“Things are quite different, and it feels really ripe, and it has for a number of years, to have a real look and see if we’re still being served as well as we should be by our current form of government,” said Karen Adelman-Foster, a previous Select Board member and organizer of the committee.
Currently, Natick operates under a representative town meeting form of government. This means elected members of each of the town’s 10 precincts vote on matters such as zoning rules, the budget and other bylaws.
Convening twice a year, during what is called Town Meeting, 180 volunteer members are eligible to vote on decisions that impact the day-to-day lives of residents, while overseeing a budget that has grown to approximately $200 million. Spring Annual Town Meeting for 2026 is set to begin on April 28.
“What happens in your municipal government affects your day to day life at least as much as what happens in the federal government,” Adelman-Foster said. “So it’s worth paying attention to.”
According to Massachusetts General Law, there are two ways to change a town’s form of government. One is through a Special Act, where a selected committee drafts a new charter, the town’s version of a constitution, which goes through town meeting and eventually the state legislature, if approved.
The second is a Charter Commission, an elected nine-person committee that would spend up to 18 months studying the current charter and proposing amendments that would go back to the voters. In order to place a question on the ballot to establish a Charter Commission, proponents need to collect 15% of the registered voters’ signatures.
During the Natick Charter Commission Signature Committee’s initial outreach in 2023, it was unable to secure the required number of 4,700 signatures, coming up with only about 1,600.
“I, and a lot of other people — actually, 1,600 people — think it’s worth at least convening such a commission,” Adelman-Foster said.
Paul Joseph, a former Select Board and Town Meeting member who was an active leader of the initial Signature Committee effort, said the process proved much more difficult than anticipated.
“What I thought was a fairly simplistic, ‘Hey, let voters decide something’ became a very long, drawn out process,” he said.
Joseph said there were multiple reasons why their efforts did not go further. First, the state mandated signature form implied that signers were directly endorsing a change in the government structure rather than putting the question on the ballot, and that turned people away.
Additionally, many residents, especially those who relocated to Natick during the pandemic, were unfamiliar with the current form of government, making it difficult to ask people to consider changing it.
Joseph said there was also a common misconception about what switching to a city form of government actually would mean. A city form of government refers to a management structure, such as a council, and does not mean Natick would become a city or undergo urbanization.
Several Massachusetts municipalities, including Braintree and Franklin, already operate under a city form of governance while remaining towns.
“Unless people understand the root reasons for this change, asking people to change something they’re not aware of doesn’t go anywhere,” Joseph said.
The effort has taken a pause, with the committee now exploring other options of signature collection.
“We’re convinced that we need to look at the form of governance, and that’s the most important thing,” Adelman-Foster said.
However, not everyone thinks there is a need for a change. Frank Foss, Natick’s previous town moderator, said he signed the petition to support offering the question to voters but is “not a proponent of a city government.”
Foss noted that residents in a representative town meeting form tend to have more direct opportunities to participate than those in a city government structure, but acknowledged that relying on volunteers makes participation difficult.
Joseph said Natick’s current structure has put the town at a competitive disadvantage for “attracting and developing a commercial taxpayer base.”
“[The committee] was about getting a rhythm and having some better ability to serve commercial interests,” he said.
He said it is important to step back and re-evaluate for the future: “We can tune up the engine, but we’re not asking the big question: Is this the right engine?”