Kingston City Hall. Photo: AlexiusHoratius, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
Kingston residents will get their first big public session on rewriting the city charter on Wednesday, Dec. 9, when the Charter Review Commission holds a forum at the Kingston Library, 61 Crown St., from 6 to 8 p.m.
The charter is the city’s constitution. It sets out what the mayor and the Common Council can do, how elections are run and how local laws get made. The forum is meant to collect ideas for changing it, and the city says no knowledge of city government or the charter is needed to take part. Spanish interpretation will be available, and the city is asking people to RSVP at bit.ly/KingstonCharterForum2026.
The details come from a Nov. 6 announcement from Mayor Steven T. Noble and Common Council President Andrea Shaut.
A commission picked partly by lottery
What makes Kingston’s review unusual is who is doing it. The Common Council created an 18-member Charter Review Commission through Local Law 6 of 2025. The mayor and the council appointed six members. The other 12 were chosen in August by civic lottery, a random draw from residents who signed up, run by the National Civic League so that the public members reflect the city’s population.
The National Civic League, a Denver-based nonprofit that publishes a widely used model city charter, is serving as the city’s consultant and will facilitate the Dec. 9 forum.
The people who registered for the lottery also filled out a public survey, and the city says the results have shaped the commission’s work so far. The survey results and the details of how the lottery worked are posted on the city’s Engage Kingston charter revision page.
Structure, not policy
The commission’s focus is how city government is built and run, not individual policy fights, according to the city. That distinction matters in a year when Kingston’s mayor and council have been at odds. Earlier this month the council overrode Noble’s veto to freeze the sale of city parking lots. Questions about the balance of power between the two branches, such as veto rules, are exactly the kind of thing a charter sets.
The commission will keep meeting monthly through summer 2027 before it makes recommendations. Under New York law, changes proposed by a charter commission generally go to voters for approval, so any rewrite would most likely land on a city ballot after the commission finishes.
The city is running other public input efforts at the same time. Its citywide parking survey is open through Dec. 18. More Kingston and Ulster County coverage is in our Hudson Valley section.
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