04-10-25 - Charter Commission Agenda Packet

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As noted above, any change to even -year elections is necessarily going to impact the term lengths of Council members and the Mayor for an election cycle or two to get those terms on the new even -year election cycle. This means that if the Charter wants the move to even -year elections to become effective this year or in the next couple of years, this method of amending the Charter would involve modifying the terms of sitting elected officials by those elected officials. One possible way to avoid this would be to set the effective date of the change further out in the future so that voters in the next municipal election(s) can account for a varied term length when voting on their elected officials. For example, if the change becomes effective in 2028, meaning November 2028 is the first time the City holds an even -year election, the Charter amendment could specify that Council members elected in the November 2025 election will hold their seats through 2028 (serving a three-year term — 2026-2028) and that Council members elected in the November 2027 election will hold their seats through 2030 (also serving a three-year term — 2027-2030), and that all members elected in even -year elections will hold four-year terms. II. Charter Commission Proposes Amendment To Be Submitted to Voters Under this option to amend the Charter, the Charter Commission directly proposes a Charter amendment to be decided by voters at an election. Minn. Stat. § 410.12, subd. 1. This option is fairly simple and has limited City Council involvement. To pursue this method of amending the City's Charter, the following steps would need to occur: 1. The Charter Commission must vote to propose to the voters an amendment to Section 4.01 of the City's Charter that would move municipal elections from odd -numbered years to even -numbered years. 2. The proposed amendment must be submitted to the City Council at least seventeen (17) weeks prior to the general election. 3. The City Council must set the form of the ballot and ensure that the ballot question sufficiently identifies the proposed amendment such that it is distinguishable from any other question on the ballot at the same time. The ballot question must be submitted to the County Auditor at least eighty-four (84) days prior to the election. 4. The City must publish notice of the election on the proposed Charter amendment once a week for two successive weeks in the official newspaper of the City prior to the election. The notice must contain the full text of the proposed Charter amendment. 3