Agenda - Council - 04/22/2008 - Laserfiche WebLink

Home

have an election on the bi- annual Municipal election date. Theoretically, someone could resign in January 2007, a new member could be appointed and then be up for re- election in 2008. The Charter Commission voted that down. Then Commissioner Deemer proposed that if there must be a special election, that it at least be held in November. The Commission said no to that too. This would be a fairly rare instance. It's never happened in Ramsey in the 25 years it has been a Charter City. We now have a primary election and we now have seven Councilmembers; therefore, these are some housekeeping issues we have delved into In November, we had a discussion about cleaning this up and addressing our concerns. These have all created a need for change. Chair LaMere commented on the Ward system that came into effect in the last few years making a difference also Commissioner Cleveland commented that in doing some research into some other cities with Charters, it appears that when a seat is up for re- election and someone vacates that seat 120 days or less before the November election, the City does offer the seat immediately to the person when they are voted in Other cities have had primaries for a special election for, seats that open up. They have three weeks in which to notify the public that the seat is open. It has to be published three times. They file for candidacy and if there are more than two candidates, a primary will be held. If the vacant seat was not up for re- election and the candidacy has been filed for — three weeks notification and that candidate can be placed on the November ballot. Attorney Goodrich stated with regard to notification — that the language states it shall be published as soon as is practicable. Commissioner Cleveland felt the Commission should talk about and set specifics. She felt that three consecutive publications was a good number for a seat that is not normally up for an election in November. Attorney Goodrich referred to the first paragraph where it says there will be a special election. If a vacancy occurs in mid -July and it is for a seat that will be voted on in November - the seat vacancy is said not to exist. If it is an at -large seat, the feeling was that this would be okay; however, it was suggested that this might be too long a time for a ward not to be represented. He stated that the Commission has laid out what it wants to do with that first sentence. Now we will talk about the second sentence. Commissioner Deemer stated we have a ward seat not up for election maybe the at -large Councilmember not up for an election be automatically appointed to that ward until the election is held. Commissioner Cleveland talked about the official notice and starting the election process — acknowledging the vacancy. Commissioner Deemer stated that because of the time it takes — let's just leave it at November. The argument against it would be if you are leaving award unrepresented for a longer period of time. Charter Commission/February 21, 2008 Page 3 of 6