NORWICH – Amendments to an ordinance outlining the appointment of a Norwich ratepayer to the Connecticut Municipal Electric Energy Cooperative will come before the City Council on Monday.

One such alteration to the ordinance mandates the ratepayer report to the City Council on a quarterly basis - either in person or by written form.

"The whole reason we even have this legislation is because people were not happy with how CMEEC was spending money," Alderman Samuel Browning, who is proposing the amendments, said. "I can not stress enough how important this amendment is."

The ordinance originally came before the council in September and was quickly passed in October, though the council has frequently revisited possible amendments. According to state law, an ordinance has to be in place before the appointment of a ratepayer.

Former Board of Education member Rashid Haynes, a Republican, was recently appointed as the representative, which is mandated by a new state law that imposes stringent requirements on CMEEC and similar agencies.

The law was proposed in the wake of CMEEC’s May 2016 Kentucky Derby trip, which erupted into controversy after The Bulletin first reported on the $342,000 trip and its 44 attendees in October 2016.

"We would have no way of knowing if this happened again if there was no report to the council," Browning said.

Mayor Peter Nystom said he will not be voting in favor of the ordinance "as it is written now."

Nystrom said he has no problem with mandating the ratepayer report to the council, however, he said it should be on a more flexible schedule.

"So the ratepayer will report every three months. What if they come and do a report and there is an issue the following month. Do we have to wait until the next report to hear from him?" he said.

Nystrom said he was also concerned whether the city would incur cost with the mandate and had been consulting with a city attorney.

According to Attorney Michael Driscoll, the debate is on whether a quarterly report would have to be published in the newspaper, and whether that would produce a cost.

"There seems to be some confusion about whether the report would need to be published and how much that would cost," he said. "I'm sure that will come up at the meeting."

The original ordinance also mandated the appointed ratepayer not owe any bills to Norwich Public Utilities. The regulation has been removed from the updated proposal. Browning said utility bills are confidential and should not be monitored by officials.

"You can’t just call NPU and ask what someone’s residential bill is," he said. "Do we really want the City Council to be the utility police?"

At the Monday meeting, the City Council will also vote on amendments to the city labor contracts’ pensions. According to Human Resources Director Brigid Marks, the city has been negotiating since early September with a coalition of 10 unions that represent the Board of Education, Norwich Public Utilities and City Hall. Existing pensions expired Dec. 31 after a 10-year lockout, she said.

The council will also vote on abolishing six "inactive" committees including two property sale committees, the Dodd Stadium Committee, the Select Committee of Inquiry, the Downtown Coordinating Committee and the Sustainable Energy Sources Committee.