Minutes - Charter Commission - 01/16/2003

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Commissioner Deemer stated that he just wants to continue going over these statutes a little at a time, agreeing on each part. Then we can go on to the next meeting and expand on this. Commissioner Bertzyk suggested that it does appear that the petition should come to the Charter Commission first. Commissioner LaMere stated she wanted clarification of what the question is. Commissioner Deemer stated that the question is... "is there initiative enabled in the State Statutes". Can the City Attorney get the question answered by the proper State Statute attorney to which Mr. Goodrich replied yes. Commissioner Deemer stated that if it is enabled in the State Statutes, then his argument goes away. Commissioner LaMere stated is there a requirement to come to the Charter first - what's the process - that's the question for Mr. Goodrich to find out. Chairperson Vogt suggested tabling this case to the next meeting and place it last on the agenda. He pointed out that the City has only had three petitions presented in the last 25 years. Case #4: Review of.Procedure for Placing Charter Amendments on the Ballot Commissioner Henke stated she felt that the Charter or the City did a poor job of putting Chapter 14 on the ballot. She has had many people say that the way it was worded, they weren't sure if they should vote yes or not. The ballot did not indicate what was in Chapter 14 of the Charter. She felt that when the Charter Commission was discussing putting it on the ballot, a couple of points were discussed. We talked about density but we did not discuss MUSA lines, we did not discuss the 4/5th part, we did not discuss the part about voters approval. We discussed portions of Chapter 14 that we felt were not legal. We did not address any other issues. Then it turned out we were deleting all of Chapter 14. A lot of the Charter Commissioners felt that our intent was not to delete all of Chapter 14. We talked about informing our residents. We discussed educating the public. The public was told that some sections had been rendered redundant. She read an article from the Anoka County Union. She believes an attempt was made but we should not have put Chapter 14 on the ballot without telling people what was in Chapter 14. We did not tell them that what Chapter 14 dealt with should have been done by ordinance rather than the way it was. This article in the paper is minimizing Chapter 14. This is the City Administrator saying this, not the Charter Commission. City Attorney Goodrich explained that the City has to be neutral. You Cannot put the entire Chapter on the ballot, you have to be factual, and you cannot say anything that may sway a vote. People need to be informed prior to the vote. This was an attempt to be factual. What the City stated had to be sterile. The City has to be totally unbiased. Commissioner Henke stated that the words in Chapter 14 were not available to the citizens. Mr. Goodrich stated that Chapter 14 was available at City Hall. The Charter Commission televised information about Chapter 14, Charter Commission -January 16, 2003 · Page 5 of 8