Minutes - Council - 05/18/2005 - Special

Home

William K. Goodrich 2005 May 17, Page 6 believe that the Partnership is entitled to recoup the portion of its expenditures in excess of its pro rata share and remand to the district court to determine the details and amounts. Christopher Lake Development Co., 35 F.3d at 1275. Courts are currently divided on the question bf whether the "essential nexus" and "rough proportionality" requirements in DoIan v. City of figard apply to monetary exactions and to generally applicable ordinances imposing exactionsl of citywide impact. See Town of Flower Mound v. Stafford Estates Limited J'artners~if, 135 S.W.2d 620, 634-42 Gl'ex. 2004) (summarizing the split of authority on these questions: but concluding that Dolan applies to a eitywide monetary exaction). Because of the Minnesot'a Supreme Court's decisions in Johnson and Collis render the Proposed Amendments unconst~tutmnal without regard to whether the "dssential nexus" and "rough proportionality" 'standards:established in Dolan also apply in th/s sett/ng, we need not address Dolan further, A!though the manifestly unconstitutional portions of the Proposed Amendments originate in Scctimi 8.9, we. do not believe that Section 8.9 is s.everable from Sections 8.7, 8.8, and gAO of the Propc~sed Amendments. See Minn. Stat.§ 645.20 ("If any provision .of a law is found to be m~constit[ttional and void, the remaining provisions of the law shall remain valid, unless the court finds the valid provisions of'the law are so essentially and inseparably connected with,-and so dependent Upon, the void provisions that the court cannot presume the legislature would have enacted Ce remaining valid provisions without the void one; or unless the court finds the · remaining valid provisions, standing alone, are. incomplete and are incapable of'being executed in accordance with the legislative intent.") 'Section 8.7 indicates that the purpose of the amendments is in part to "assure that the entire cost of extending sewer and water for leapfrog development shall be the responsibility of property owner(s) wanting the improvement," and Section ~.8 presumes the availability of an escrow fund subsidized by charges to those pet~ttomng for the extension of sewer and water to their properties.. Absent the mechanism created b~ Section 8.9 for financing that escrow by charging petitioning .parties for more than the benefit of those improvements to their own properties, there is. no reason to believe that the escrow account would be able to meet the liabilities that Section 8.8 wguld require, Section 8.10 merely piovides an effective date. Because we do not believe that any portion of the Proposed Amendments is severable from Section 8.9, we conclude that the Proposed Amendments as a whole Sh6uld not be placed on the ballot. The Effect of Misrepresentations in ~he Petitioning Process T~ consider whether misrepresentations in the petitioning process would give the City the aut, hority:l,if not the duty to reject the Petition, we've examined two sets of statutes: those that govern how a City may respond to a petition for an amendment to a city charter, see Minn. Stat, §§ 410.10 and 410.12, and the Minnesota statute that governs false campaign speech, Minn. Stat. § 21 lB.0:6. Sections 410.10 and 410.12 do not provide a mechanism or opportunity for a city to reject a ~etition based on misrepresentations in,the petitioning process. While §410.12 sub& 3