Agenda - Council - 06/23/1981 - Laserfiche WebLink

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MEMORANDUM June 1, 1981 Page Two A dispassionate examination of my activities on your behalf over these past half- dozen months, nonetheless, would reveal a remarkable record of accomplishment. If I have erred at all'in this it has been in not reporting to you my every activity, my every conversation, my every'agreement arri'ved at with my-colleagues inregard to our local government aids proposals. My words are entirely inadequate, moreover, to express to you my sorrow that you, lady and gentlemen of the Council, whom I know to be honest and intelligent people, found it necessary to arraign and try me, find me guilty and sentence me, all in absentia. I fould the registered letter format to be a further and unnecessary degra-~ion. Particularly distressing is the fact that only two of you have ever spoken personally to me about this matter; those two were free, of course, to make a judgement for they alone had heard both sides of the story. But what can be said of the majority who condemned me having sought and received testimony from only one perspective of this very difficult and complex situation? Certainly not that they acted in a manner consistent with the basic values of fair-plaY and justice. Your action, in adopting the type of resolution you did and worded as it is, presents me with a number of difficulties. You have unilaterally violated my basic, often- expressed policy of cooperation with the units of local government in my district, you have clouded the issue of whether you wanted to procede legislatively with amendments to the local government aids statute. (You may, of course, choose to pursue the issue in the courts, as you have often suggested to me that you would.. But counsel advises me that the judge before whom you'd hear your case will want to have evidence in hand that the Legislature, confronted with the problem of inequity, refused to act. That your alternatives are exhausted. Clearly no legis- lative consideration has yet taken place. Alternatives have not been exhausted; thus you have put yourselve~ in a very difficult position should we decide not to pursue this legislation. It appears to me that a reasonable person could conclude e that just as yo? stood on the brink.of legislative consideration of your petition, you, by resolution, sabotaged your own case.)' Your resolution has, additionally, damaged the credibility of the Minnesota League of Small Cities lobbying effort in the eyes of key legislators and staff persons with whom I have discussed it. Thus, my job of presenting our proposed changes, should you ask me to continue in it, is made immeasurably harder. Unless there is some redress, some understanding we can arrive at in regard to this matter, you have made it difficult for your- selves (and-possibly even the Minnesota League of Small Cities) to continue to work with me on this legislation. At this point, regardless of whatever else happens, it nowappears that'I will not be able to count on your aid and support should I continue to press our proposals in the Legislature.