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Recall is a special election to determine whether mayor or councilmembers <br />shall continue to serve in office. Most charters have a provision that <br />recall would be in the event of misfeasance or malfeasance'by an elected <br />official. Misfeasance means you are negligent of your official duties and <br />malfeasance means you are deliberately performing wrongful acts. There is <br />an obscure provision in statutory government that allows the Governor to <br />remove an official from office. Two violations of the open meeting law <br />constitutes removal from office. <br /> <br />An elected official is put in office to make decisions according to his own <br />best judgement and he is in no way obligated to vote according to the voice <br />of the electorate and voting according to his own judgement cannot be considered <br />malfeasance unless there is a real conflict of interest involved. <br /> <br />Minnesota League of Cities strongly recommends including malfeasance/misfeasance <br />criteria if recall is written into the charter. <br /> <br />Real Estate: Statutory cities can own, buy and sell land for a public purpose. <br />Certain procedures must be followed by both statutory and charter cities <br />when acquiring land. Disposition of land is different. Statutory cities <br />can sell land by resolution. A charter can contain provisions that greatly <br />restrict land sales. <br /> <br />There are no ordinances in a charter, it is a framework for law. In the <br />event that provisions adopted in the charter conflict with existing city <br />ordinances, the charter would prevail and the previous ordinances would be <br />repealed. A charter cannot change contract rights. Possibly the only <br />ordinances that might be conflict with a charter would be administrative type <br />ordinances. <br /> <br />Municipal Liability: Same for both statutory and charter cities. <br /> <br />Assessments: Minnesota State Statute Chapter 429 provides framework by which <br />local improvements are implemented within a city. If government improves <br />something adjacent to your property (such as streets) and can prove the p~operty <br />values has increased because of that improvement, they can assess the property <br />owner for that improvement. Improvements are brought about by a petition of <br />35% of frontage property owners and a 3/5 vote of council or without a petition <br />and a 4/5 vote of council. There is no opinion from any reliable source whether <br />or not a charter can change this criteria. If a charter attempts to change this <br />criteria it should be reviewed by the Attorney General. <br /> <br />Amendments: There are basically three ways to amend a charter - <br /> <br />1. Public can propose an amendment <br />2. Charter Commission can propose an amendment <br />3. Council can propose an amendment <br /> <br />If any one of the above three entities opposes the amendment, an election must <br />be held. If none of the three entities opposes, a referendum is not required. <br /> <br />Charter Commission recessed at 9:50 p.m. <br /> <br />Chairman Heitman called the meeting back to order at 10:02 p.m. <br /> <br />CC/June 23, 1983 <br /> Page 4 of 8 <br /> <br /> <br />