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Charter Commission March 30, 2017 Page 3 91 Commissioner Stranik stated that if the potential attorney states that the comment of the City 92 Attorney is wrong that would simply place the Commission in the position of having to go 93 against the City Council and the Commission does not have sufficient funds to do that. 94 95 Commissioner Storberg asked how the Commission would be able to finance a third party to 96 determine boundaries. 97 98 Chair Dahl stated that she would assume that the City Council would need to authorize funds. 99 100 Commissioner Storberg stated that if the ward system was put into place there would be limits on 101 who can run and who cannot, depending on which ward is represented by the vacant position. 102 She stated that right now any person could run for any position on the Council. 103 104 Commissioner Devaney stated that he has struggled with the idea of a ward system. He stated 105 that the benefit to having wards is that is ensures that there is equal representation of all residents 106 of the City. He stated that without wards five people could be elected from the same area of the 107 City and therefore other areas of the City would not be fairly represented. He stated that until 108 recently there was not representation from his area of the City but now that there is a 109 representative on the Council from that area, he feels better represented and feels that it is easier 110 to reach out to someone that lives closer to him. He noted that another struggle is that perhaps 11 there is not someone from a ward that wants to run for the Council. He stated that the job of the ► . ,2 Commission is not to debate whether or not they personally would like the ward system as the 113 Commission has voted to move forward with the ward amendment and let the residents choose 114 for themselves on the ballot. 115 116 Commissioner Stranik stated that the Commission has already voted to move this ward 117 amendment forward to the ballot to let the voters choose and therefore unless the Commission 118 would like to make a vote to rescind that decision, the item is moving forward and the 119 Commission should not spend time debating the topic. 120 121 Commissioner Lyden stated that if the ward amendment is approved, that would allow the 122 opportunity for more people to get involved on the local level. 123 124 Commissioner Stanek stated that Chair Dahl noted that there were some items from the 2014 125 draft amendment language that she would like to see included in the potential ward amendment 126 and asked for details. 127 128 Chair Dahl noted that she would like language included that the Charter Commission would hire 129 a third party to determine the boundaries of the wards to ensure fairness. 130 131 Commissioner Damiani stated that it appears the Commission is wasting their time discussing 132 this matter without the opinion and comments of the potential attorney and suggested " 33 reconvening once the potential attorney provides his opinion. �34 3