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The Erie County Charter Revision Commission was established in April 2005 and its mandate expired in July 2006. The Commission’s recommendations for changes to the Charter have been submitted to the Erie County Legislature for consideration, the Legislature has passed a local law including many of the Commission’s recommendations, and the County Executive has signed the local law. The local law will next be submitted to Erie County voters in a referendum.

See further details below.

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Commission Chair George K. Arthur delivered the Commission’s final report to Erie County Legislature Chair Lynn Marinelli at a press conference on June 20:

• The text of Chairman Arthur’s remarks at the press conference
• A summary of all the Commission’s recommendations, organized by location in the Charter
• The full text of each recommendation (including proposed Charter language in most cases), organized by committee and topic

(Also useful is the summary of all recommendations, organized by committee and topic, that was distributed at the May 31–June 6 public hearings on the Commission’s recommendations.)

The Legislature took action on all the recommendations at its session of July 13. This copy of the summary of recommendations includes additional notes indicating which recommendations were approved and which were disapproved. Note that some recommendations which were disapproved at this time were also sent to committee for further study, and may later be adopted in revised form.

At its session of July 20, the Legislature unanimously passed Local Law 7, specifying the new charter language for all the recommendations that were approved on the 13th.

The County Executive then had 30 days to sign or veto the local law; he signed it on August 16.

Erie County voters will decide whether to adopt or reject the Charter revisions in a referendum on November 7. The County Attorney’s office has prepared the official abstract (summary) of the local law for purposes of the referendum.