Minutes - Charter Commission - 03/26/2012

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Motion carried. Voting Yes: Chairperson Field, Commissioners Anderson, Deemer and Niska. Voting No: None. Abstain: Commissioners Shea and Sivertson. Absent: Commissioners Bendtsen, Niederhaus and Sherman. COMMISSION BUSINESS 5.1 Elect Chair and Vice Chair for 2012 Motion by Commissioner Deemer, seconded by Commissioner Anderson to remain status quo for 2013 — Commissioner Field as Chair and Commissioner Sherman as Vice- Chair. Further Discussion: City Clerk Thieling noted for the record that Commissioner Sherman had offered to serve as Vice -Chair if appointed. Motion carried. Voting Yes: Chairperson Field, Commissioners Deemer, Anderson, Niska, Shea and Sivertson. Voting No: None. Absent: Commissioners Bendtsen, Niederhaus and Sherman. 5.2 Introduce New Charter Commission Members and Update Commission on Status of Vacancies Chairperson Field recognized newest member Chad Sivertson and welcomed him to the Commission. Mr. Sivertson was issued the Oath of Office prior to the start of the meeting. City Clerk Thieling noted that the other newly appointed member John Niederhaus was not at the meeting this evening. She then gave an update with regard to the Commissioner's terms, noting there were no vacancies at this time. 5.3 Consider Revision to Chapter 8 of Charter regarding Special Assessment Petitions City Attorney Goodrich stated that currently, for the petition process, we operate under State Statute 429 — where 35 percent of the benefited property owners can petition for a public improvement, then requiring a simple City Council majority vote to order the improvement, or without a petition, or less than 35 percent of the benefited property owners petition, the City Council can, with a four -fifths vote, order the public improvement. Staff is recommending the Charter Commission consider changing the 35 percent petition number to a higher threshold to 50 percent. Mr. Goodrich pointed out that the Commission sliould only concentrate on whether or not they agree with the petition increase to 50 percent of the benefited landowners. The rest of the language is procedural and we are only talking about the I difference. Following discussion about what is changing; Mr. Goodrich reiterated that the language presented to the Commission is identical to what is there now in State Statute, with the exception of changing 35 percent to 50 percent for the landowners' petition. Chairperson Field noted that we can be more restrictive to change from 35 to 50 and State law permits the City's Charter to make such adjustments. Charter Commission/ March 26, 2012 Page 2 of 8