Councilman Harrison Amadasun sworn into South Windsor Town Council Monday night
SOUTH WINDSOR, Conn. — A judge has ruled that Harrison Amadasun needed to be sworn in and seated on the South Windsor town council after a month’s long battle of a charter revision misinterpretation case.
“We’ve been on this road, this race for a long time,” Amadasun said. “On a beautiful day like today, to see the people won, it makes me happy.”
In this past November election, voters elected six democrats and three republicans to the town council and approved revisions to the town charter.
Deputy mayor Andrew Paterna said in January that those revisions were intended to take effect in 2027.
The day after election day, deputy mayor Paterna said the town attorney interpreted the charter to mean the changes should take effect immediately. As a result of that interpretation, Amadasun’s seat was eliminated.
On Monday however, a judge ruled in favor of Amadasun.
According to court documents, "changes to the charter could not possibly take effect immediately and voters did not receive a clear explanation on when the changes to the bare majority rule should take effect.”
Voters say they are happy with this decision.
“People were right, when they said we did not know at all that any of this would be happening now. That nothing was going to be immediate, everything was going to happen in two years.” Darra Plummer a resident who voted for Amadasun said.
The democratic chair in South Windsor said this case should be an example for towns that do charter revisions.
“It’s a clear message to towns that think about town revisions, that you cannot retractively reapply charters to throw out electoral votes” Anitha Elango said.
Congressman John Larson said he was shocked when he heard about this last year.
Larson’s niece serves on South Windsor town council and he said he talked with her about it.
“I was astonished, I said didn’t they understand that the way the law was written and the way the particular amendment that they voted on was written,” Larson said. “She said yes, they tried to override that.”
Amadasun says while this impacted him, it also impacted voters who supported him at the poll.
“Nothing else is more important than the people, that word will keep coming up,” he said. “So how does it feel? It feels good because my people are happy.”