BY MATT HERSH

After all three of Salem’s bond articles failed to gain the required two-thirds vote to pass earlier this month, selectmen have come up with a two-part plan to make the projects happen.

At their Monday, March 26, meeting, selectmen voted 4-1 to have Town Manager Henry LaBranche draft a letter to state legislators requesting a change in the statute which requires bond articles to receive 66 percent of votes to pass.

At the same time, members of the board will attempt to form a charter committee, possibly working in conjunction with citizens, which would push to change the wording in Salem’s laws to circumvent the two-thirds majority requirement.

Initially proposed by Selectman Michael Lyons, the letter will be signed by all members of the board and will request a review of the statute.

“I don’t see a problem with asking our delegation to pursue this,” he said. “If the rest of the state doesn’t want it to happen, it won’t.”

Everett McBride, who cast the sole dissenting vote against the letter, said it will be fighting an uphill battle.

“You would need the approval of 200 representatives and a lot of municipalities will not want to change,” he said. “I’d rather exhaust our options before we go to the state.”

Still, other board members said they didn’t see the harm in making the attempt despite the difficulty.

Selectman Elizabeth Roth said the new roster of Concord officials might be more likely to support the idea.

Roth also said the letter should emphasize the critical projects which failed in Salem, ultimately affecting the safety of roads and bridges.

The other option, which McBride said he favored, is a charter commission which would make a push to gain citizen support to change the town’s government.

Roth said the charter process is two-staged. First, voters would have to approve the creation of the charter committee, allowing town officials to consider changing the wording of the existing charter.

If approved, the committee would have to spend about a year studying the charter and come up with a change proposal to go before voters in March. So, even if the process starts to move, it will be at least two years before voters could see a warrant article proposing the change.

“It’s supposed to be difficult,” Roth said. “You don’t want to make it easy to change your charter.”

McBride tried to get such a commission together in the past but failed to gather enough support. This time, he said residents from the Haigh Avenue area of Salem, which was hit with heavy flooding last May, might play a key role in pushing the cause.

Since the town’s $3.8 million bridge bond would have repaired areas damaged during the floods as well as funded a hydrology study which might prevent future flooding, McBride said Haigh Avenue residents might be more successful in getting the charter commission running than he was.

No dates have been set for sending the letter or starting work on the charter commission.