08-26-2024 City Council Agenda Packet (2)

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Council Minutes -9- July 8, 2024 1. CONSENT AGENDA Motion to Approve Expenditures for July 8, 2024 (Check No. 120995 through 121039) in the Amount of $573,685.60. RESULT: CARRIED [UNANIMOUS] MOVER: Lyden SECONDER: Ruhland AYES: Rafferty, Cavegn, Lynde, Ruhland and Stoesz 2. FINANCE DEPARTMENT REPORT No Report 3. ADMINISTRATION DEPARTMENT REPORT The City Clerk reported that the City was in receipt of three petitions. One related to an ordinance amendment and two related to Charter Amendments. She stated that this evening the petitions were being submitted for receipt as being technically sufficient. She reported that the number of required signatures and form of the petition was determined to be technically sufficient. She stated that the City Attorney would then be completing a review as to their legal sufficiency. She reviewed the timelines for placing the matters on a future ballot, noting that August 131" is the date for submitting language to the County for inclusion on the November ballot. Council Member Lynde confirmed that the ordinance amendment could be adopted by the City Council directly, without a ballot measure. The City Attorney provided a further overview of the process. He stated that first step in the process after receiving either initiative petition, which is the ordinance that's proposed and then presented to the Council, or a petition for a Charter Amendment is to determine the technical sufficiency under either state law or the charter provisions that may apply to that. The City Attorney stated the second step, and that's the one we'll be discussing in the future, arises from the fact that there's a significant amount of case law in Minnesota that positions city councils to be gatekeepers of petition processes in a Charter City. So as things pass from the petition through the Charter Commission as to the amendments, and up to the Council, assuming it's all technically sufficient, it's still necessary to assure that there aren't legal infirmities in the proposals.