Agenda - Canvassing Board - 08/16/1995

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MAYOR/COUNCIL INPUT Background: CONFLICT OF INTEREST UPDATE By: Ryan R. Schroeder At the July 11, 1995 meeting, I was asked to schedule a workshop bringing in a consultant to discuss how to handle situations wherein there could potentially be a conflict of interest. I have not yet been able to do this but do in fact intend to, perhaps for late September or October. It was also discussed that Attorney Goodrich would be providing a report shortly. Enclosed is a letter by Attorney Goodrich to the County Attorney regarding the alleged violation of M.S. 471.87 and 471.88 as well as a letter from the Northeast State Bank on the same issue. Also please find a July 26, 1995 letter from the Anoka County Attorney's office. This letter concludes that after conducting an investigation, "there is no criminal conduct in the facts we have found and are closing our file in this matter". We have also discussed an alleged manipulation of the Amber Ridge development agreement by then Councilmember Hardin. While I am not intimately involved in all development agreements, I was in that particular one. It was the first major subdivision after the Wood Pond projects. It was scheduled as a "Streets of Reality" subdivision and as such was a project in which the City was very interested. The developers had suggested using a pledge and payment agreement to meet our security demands. In that I had not utilized this tool before, I contacted Mr. Hardin for his opinion on use of that security. He informed me that he preferred not to discuss it in that the developers did business with the Northeast State Bank. That was the end of the discussion and there was no other contact with Mr. Hardin regarding this subdivision. I sought out other sources for advice and ultimately we completed negotiations on the development agreement with assistance by Attorney Goodrich. It is my opinion that the security received in this subdivision was actually better than that received from developers up to that point. The dollar value of the security was less than the original proposed value. However, we did not allow the developer access to lots beyond the value of the security in hand (we phased the build out of the subdivision). Therefore, we had as much or more security within each construction phase than originally proposed. The net of the above is that no member of Council was involved in the development agreement; the Council as a whole received the staff recommendation on the agreement and Mayor Hardin abstained on the final plat approval wherein the security instrument was approved by Council. Therefore, if the concern is possible manipulation of the development process by any member of Council regarding Amber Ridge, I unequivocally state that this did not occur. Given the above, I recommend that Council bring closure to this issue. Toward that end, I will not place "conflict of issue" on any future agenda (but for the workshop noted above) without specific Council direction. Council Action: Based upon discussion. Reviewed by: City Administrator CC: 08/08/95 /jmt