Minutes - Charter Commission - 04/18/1996

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Now being only a lay person reading all of these rules and regulations and wonder if the original drafters of the charter were made aware that this far less stringent set of Minnesota Statutes in §410 could be used to change the very document that they were drafting, with the provision to modify, initiative, built in. I spent several days reading all of the recorded minutes of those original charter commissions meetings. I would argue that their intent was, the provision they made in Chapter 5, was the only procedure that they thought could be used to modify the charter and city codes, via an ordinance to amend, and the Mayor who was one of them agreed. There would be no necessity to provide that mechanism if it was as easy as Mr. Hendriksen says chapter §410.12 of statutes is, and they were aware of that. The referendum requirement to vote on an ordinance to amend the charter is also in §410.12, and is far less restrictive than anything you have seen yet. It is also noted that in the drafting of chapter 5, there was no concern about Minnesota Statute overruling charter, only the definition of "ordinance", ref: 8/25/83 and again on 9/8/83 when correcting the draft of 8/25/83 on chapter 5. But in drafting of chapter 7 the definition of ordinance was not supplied by the Attorney General's office as requested. It should be noted now that no one advising that commission provided a definition of "Ordinance" contrary to what they were believing on 9/22/83. It also should be noted that, according to the minutes of the 4th meeting of the charter commission on 7/14/83 there was great concern about keeping special interest groups in check, when discussing initiative and referendum. The concerns about special interest groups are not mentioned again. I would also like to point out that on 10/27/83, the charter commission was given a written critique of the working document that was provided to the various commissions. It provided some incite into almost exactly what is happening now and I forgot that I had written it. From the examination of the summary of the charter presented on 2/15/84, it is apparent that the charter commission had no idea that the very document they had worked so hard on could be amended by anything other than the procedure they were setting out. Remember now that this charter came into being because of the desire to prevent Sewer and Water expansion into existing residential areas. It is also apparent that chapter 8 of the charter which was described as the strongest side winning, and had more written minutes of discussion than any other chapter. This was the chapter of and for the proponents of the charter. And when asked the specific question at the public presentation at the city hall, "How is the charter changed?" - The response was to describe the chapter 5 initiative process. They had no idea of this (§410.12 subd. 1 thru 7) would allow what is happening now. In a later Q and A session this very scenario was described by someone else, and the response was that state statutes and the proposed charter would not allow it to happen. Surprise, Surprise. I contend that the reported ambiguity of §410.10 subd 1, is such that the legal advice is not cast in stone. Advise is only advise, it is not law. Remember that you are empowered to get an independent legal opinion from an attorney of your own choosing, §410.06 lines 1 and 2, and the city will pay the bill, because it also says that they have to. Even the attorney generals office has doubt, and gives opinions on historic documents of court cases of 40 years ago, saying the court has done this in the past. There is no documentation of this case, only cases involving charter cities without initiative provisions. The chapter continually states that the charter commission will, and the charter commission shall. I read §410.12 subd. 1 to say that, the charter commission shall propose an amendment, and if that amendment is longer than 1,000 words they have the right to pre-approve the summary of the amendment that is required, before any signatures are obtained. This subdivision does not put any further restrictions on the amendment that the charter commission must propose. Nothing after the semi-colon applies to this petition to amend the charter.