07-14-2011 Charter Packet - Laserfiche WebLink

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\Rough Draft of (2) Charter History: Charter History In the 70's and 80's Lino Lakes experienced a development spurt that saw many projects approved over the objections of local residents. One of those was a Lake Drive sewer project that would have brought about special assessments to the benefitted land and homeowners in amounts greater than their property values. At a public hearing for this project over 600 people tried to attend the meeting but because of city hall being too small it was moved to St. Joseph's Church. Even though over 800 people were against the project and about 25 were for it, the city council still passed it. Faced with this project, 600 citizens formed an incorporated group called Citizens for Responsive Government. This group hired an attorney and successfully fought to stop the project, and to this day in 2011, this project has not been necessary. After this project was stopped, the citizens discovered that a City Council has absolute power to approve any project they deem necessary regardless of citizen input. Due to the possibility this could happen again in Lino Lakes, Citizens for Responsive Government decided to research the possibility of a Charter Government in Lino Lakes to give the citizens a vote in future assessable projects. After this research was obtained, a signed petition was given to City Hall to have this question put on the ballot. A special election was held on the 12th of January in 1982, and the Charter was overwhelmingly passed by an '80% margin. To this day every attempt to delete Sec. 8 of the Charter (property and municipal improvements) of its power has failed by 70 — 80 percent of the voters. Because of the hard work of the volunteer charter commissioners and citizens for almost 30 years, we still have the right to vote on certain improvement projects in Lino Lakes. The city has grown from 2,000 in 1982 to over 20,000 in 2011. There is now more than ever a need to protect property owners from projects that might not be good for a neighborhood as well as giving them a voice to have projects put in that they might need in the future. This particular Charter in Lino Lakes is the voice of the people that can be heard BETWEEN election days.... Since it could take up to 4 years to change local council members and the mayor, a lot of future projects can go through without any votes from the affected property owners before this charter was enacted. In 2011, this is what the Charter government still does for the people of Lino Lakes. It gives the people the power of Initiative, Referendum, and Recall in addition to the ability to vote on special improvements in Lino Lakes.