Newton councilors debated cutting the city's 24-member City Council to as few as 12 seats at a Sept. 23 committee meeting, but reached no agreement on a path forward.

The Programs & Services Committee took up the question at its Wednesday, Sept. 23, session, The Heights reported. Members floated proposals to reduce the body to 16, 13 or 12 members. No consensus emerged before the committee adjourned.

Newton's council is one of the largest in the country. A city document cited at the meeting showed the average council size among the 20 biggest Massachusetts cities is 10. The same document placed Newton seventh nationally for council size, ahead of Philadelphia and Houston, despite a population just under 88,000.

The debate split along practical lines. Council President John Oliver, a Ward 1 councilor-at-large, pushed back on colleagues who dismissed a 16-member option.

"I've already heard a few people say, 'I don't know why we would bother reducing it to 16,'" Oliver said at the meeting. "Well, I think going from 24 to 16 is a massive change."

Ward 2 Councilor David Micley argued the real bottleneck is not headcount but how the council spends its time. He said the council's productivity problem comes down to how long members spend in meetings, not the number of seats.

Ward 7 Councilor-at-Large Lisle Baker cautioned that the council should define its role before picking a number. He said members need to figure out what the council wants to do first, then decide the size.

Councilor Farrell, who co-sponsored the discussion item with Councilor Block, made the case that a smaller body would strengthen relationships among members. Farrell told Micley that despite admiring him, Farrell doesn't really know him, an illustration of how a 24-member body can dilute personal connections.

Newton has tried this before. In 2017, voters rejected a Charter Commission proposal that included cutting the council from 24 to 12 members. The vote was 54% no to 46% yes, with 23,533 ballots cast. A March 2026 committee report noted that voter opposition centered on the council-size reduction, not a rejection of every item in the charter package.

Any change to the council's size would require voter approval in addition to support from the mayor and the state Legislature, according to the same report. The path could run through either a Home Rule Petition or a new Charter Commission.

The charter review item, sponsored by 11 councilors including Committee Chair Josh Krintzman, has been held repeatedly at Programs & Services meetings since March 2026 without resolution. No vote or next meeting date on the council-size question has been scheduled.