08-13-2012 Council Meeting Minutes

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COUNCIL MINUTES August 13, 2012 APPROVED 135 Council Member Roeser moved to approve Resolution No. 12-76 as presented. Council Member .36 Rafferty seconded the motion. Motion carried on a voice vote. 137 138 3B,Resolution No. 12-80,Declining Submission of Proposed Charter Amendments for Election 139 -City Attorney Langel explained that the Charter Commission proposed two amendments in January 140 of this year. One amendment proposes a tax cap and the other would add to the duties and authority 141 of the Commission itself. 142 143 Mr. Langel explained that the city's bond counsel, Attorney Steve Bubul, reviewed the tax cap 144 amendment and indicated that the proposed language of that amendment was determined to be so 145 vague and ambiguous that it would not be possible to determine how a tax cap would be determined. 146 One portion of the language was found to contradict state-law. He added that the city council has no 147 authority to "fix" amendments submitted by the charter commission. The recommendation from bond 148 counsel is that the amendment should not be forwarded to the voters. 149 150 Mr. Langel then explained the second amendment regarding the authority of the Charter Commission. 151 It proposes new language and the problem that he sees with the language is that it attempts to grant 152 the commission authority that it does not have under state law. Nothing in the state constitution or 153 state statutes allows a charter commission to expand or modify its own authority as these amendments 154 would do. He reviewed the provisions of the amendment individually. It his opinion that the 155 proposed amendments are not appropriate to put before the voters and he recommends that the 156 council should not sent them forward. k 57 L158 Chris Lyden, 6275 Holly Drive West. Mr. Lyden noted that the Charter Commission gave the 159 amendments to the city in January. He wonders why they were added to the agenda late in the day 160 today. The Mayor noted that the meeting is public,the agenda is a public document and the matter 161 was also discussed at the work session held the previous Monday. Mr. Lyden noted that the attorney 162 opinions prepared on the amendments include: 1) a determination that a proposed amendment must 163 be illegal to be withheld from the ballot and levy limits are in place in other cities; 2) state law limits 164 statutory cities but not charter cities and further there is no state law that is violated by the proposed 165 amendments. The Mayor indicated that the four minute time limit had ended. 166 167 The Mayor noted that he has attended the Charter Commission meetings regularly and made himself 168 available through the review process. There are people on the commission that want to communicate 169 with council members but others on the commission won't allow it. 170 171 Mike Trehus, 675 Shadow Court, resident and a member of the Charter Commission. He believes the 172 city council has tried to hide that they would be rejecting the amendments. He is aware that the legal 173 opinions were mailed directly to council members to avoid public review. This was a sneak attack to 174 catch the Commission unaware. He believes that council members could have spoken at open mike 175 at the commission meetings and it wouldn't have been appropriate to discuss the matter otherwise if it 176 was not on the commission's agenda. Mr. Trehus noted on the amendment that the attorney's 177 suggestion that the commission is attempting to expand its own power is not correct; the commission 178 is going to the voters to request an expansion of powers. There is nothing in any of the amendments 4