05-22-2008 Charter Packet - Laserfiche WebLink

Home Search

Charter Commission April 17, 2008 Page 7 DRAFT 264 Chair Duffy advised that it may be an option to ask staff to come and explain and stated that 265 another option would be to propose some questions and send them to staff to see what kind of 266 response they get first. 267 268 Commissioner Storberg thought that they should put forth the options and take a vote to see it the 269 Commission wants to accept the changes to the amendment to deny them. 270 271 Commissioner Bretoi questioned what the likeyhood of the Commission submitting their own 272 proposal on the charter on the ballot. 273 274 Commissioner Zastrow advised that they do not want to accept the changes that the Council has 275 proposed and stated that they could either submit their own changes or leave the existing charter 276 as is. 277 278 Chair Duffy advised that they have until May 24th to approve the City Council amendment. She 279 advised that they could then either look at continuing with the amendment that the Commission 280 submitted last December or they could withdraw that and start new to submit their own 281 amendment again. 282 283 Commissioner Zastrow thought that their previous amendment was the best that they would get "'\ 284 it. He suggested rejecting the Council amendement and letting them put it on the ballot. He 285 advised that they could then advertise against it and thought that they could knock the 286 amendment down with advertising. 287 288 Commissioner Gunderson stated that she had been following this in the papers and was just as 289 confused as most other citizens in the city. She did not believe that the Commission could spend 290 public funds to advertise either way on a ballot amendment. 291 292 Commissioner Storberg advised that the City Council could advertise in the newsletter. 293 294 Commissioner Trehus advised that the Council did already spend public funds to advertise on the 295 referendum. He stated that the Council could argue that they did not spend $25,000 to tell the 296 citizens that the charter costs the citizens millions of dollars. 297 298 Commisioner Carlson advised that from the information they received from their attorney they 299 could educate the public and believed that things would get stretched out of proportion. 300 301 Chair Duffy advised that it might be helpful to get information on multiple ballot questions. She 302 questioned how confusing the Commission wanted to make this issue. She advised that the 303 either proposal would need 51 percent of the vote to pass. 304 305 Commissioner Lyden advised that the game was going to be played whether the Commissioner 306 played or not and thought that it would be better to have a good defense rather than offense. He 307 stated that if they could stop the amendment from the City Council it would be more important