CCMin_80May28 - Laserfiche WebLink

Home Browse Search

MINUTES REGULAR CITY COUNCIL MEETING MAY 28, 1980 PAGE 6 ~~ Councilmember Eggert moved, seconded by Councilmember Brown that Item ITEM 5g of Sg of the May 14, 1980 Agenda (authorizing Bonestroo, Rosene, Anderlik MAY 14 AGENDA and Associates to proceed with preliminary plans for construction of RESCINDED a new City Hall) be rescinded in order that the matter could be discussed further. Motion carried unanimously. Councilmember Eggert informed that he felt there had aot been enough discussion before expending money for preliminary plans and he thought the following three items were necessary: (a) a public statement of intent from GTA, (b) preliminary assurance from the University of Minnesota that they were willing to discuss the possibility that some land might be available, and (c) a financial feasibility study before committing funds for a project. He also stated he felt the fact that 3 Councilmembers, Clerk Administrator and Engineer toured new city halls recently designed by the City~s Engineering Firm, constituted a closedmeeting and such meetings are illegal. In response to these questions Attorney Galvin offered Council a legal opinion as follows: ''the role of the City Attorney is to answer those legal questions which are presented by the Council, occasionally there are questions which are presented by individual Council Members, but the City Attorney attempts to apply the law, as he understands it, to a particular set of facts as presented by the Council. NEW CITY HALL DISCUSSION ATTORNEY GALVIr After a brief conversation with Attorney Kenefick (who was unable to attend this meeting) I discussed the agenda with Mr. Barnes and I dis- cussed the matter briefly with Mayor Warkentien, as generally is the custom of the City Attorney before a meeting. I had no discussion with anyone else. We have referred to the two statutes that are applicable. One is the General City Statute which is contained in Chapter 412, and says that all meetings of public bodies shall be public and the second one is the statute that we have all reference to called "The Open Meeting Law". The "Open Meeting Law" was first adopted in 1957 and substantially amended in 1973. Since 1973 there have been two Supreme Court cases construiAg the Statute. Several opinions of the Attorney General deal ~~ith speci~ic factual settings _ which are presented by a body such as a school district or a city for an advisory opinion. Those are, of course, advisory only and are directed only to a specific set of facts and a specific municipality. There are also two or three, what we call unreported decisions of various District Court cases which we assemble on a repository of back ground in- formation resource material as they occur, so that we are aware of the current decisions of the courts as they apply to issues arising over public meetings. With that background I have to say that this is a developing area of law and you have to apply the provisions of the statute to each particular set of facts. There are two issues that you look at when the issue of whether or not a meeting is public or not public arises. The first is a quorum.