04-17-2008 Minutes - Laserfiche WebLink

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Charter Commission April 17, 2008 Page 7 APPROVED 267 Commissioner Storberg thought that they should put forth the options and take a vote to see it 268 the Commission wants to accept the changes to the amendment to deny them. 269 270 Commissioner Bretoi questioned what the likeyhood of the Commission submitting their own 271 proposal on the charter on the ballot. 272 273 Commissioner Zastrow advised that they do not want to accept the changes that the Council has 274 proposed and stated that they could either submit their own changes or leave the existing charter 275 as is. 276 277 Chair Duffy advised that they have until May 24th to approve the City Council amendment. She 278 advised that they could then either look at continuing with the amendment that the Commission 279 submitted last December or they could withdraw that and start new to submit their own 280 amendment again. 281 282 Commissioner Zastrow thought that their previous amendment was the best that they would get 283 it. He suggested rejecting the Council amendement and letting them put it on the ballot. He 284 advised that they could then advertise against it and thought that they could knock the 285 amendment down with advertising. 286 287 Commissioner Gunderson stated that she had been following this in the papers and was just as 288 confused as most other citizens in the city. She did not believe that the Commission could spend 289 public funds to advertise either way on a ballot amendment. 290 291 Commissioner Storberg advised that the City Council could advertise in the newsletter. 292 293 Commissioner Trehus advised that the Council did already spend public funds to advertise on the 294 referendum. He stated that the Council could argue that they did not spend $25,000 to tell the 295 citizens that the charter costs the citizens millions of dollars. 296 297 Commisioner Carlson advised that from the information they received from their attorney they 298 could educate the public and believed that things would get stretched out of proportion. 299 300 Chair Duffy advised that it might be helpful to get information on multiple ballot questions. She 301 questioned how confusing the Commission wanted to make this issue. She advised that the 302 either proposal would need 51 percent of the vote to pass. 303 304 Commissioner Lyden advised that the game was going to be played whether the Commissioner 305 played or not and thought that it would be better to have a good defense rather than offense. He 306 stated that if they could stop the amendment from the City Council it would be more important 307 than getting the changes that the Commission would like to see approved. He thought that if 308 they could stop the amendment from the City Council they could then propose their own 309 amendment then next year to make the changes they see necessary. 310 7