09/22/2008 Council Packet - Laserfiche WebLink

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COUNCIL MINUTES September 8, 2008 DRAFT 85 and therefore was certified. State statute designates that the governing body (the city council in 86 this case) shall fix the form of the ballot for all amendments. The City's attorney, Steven Bubul, 87 has prepared a resolution relative to ballot language for the citizen proposed charter amendment. 88 It contains options for council consideration. 89 90 Laura Carlson, 585 Ash Street, former Visioning Group and Citizen's Task Force member read a 91 statement relative to her education on and experience with the city charter and the public 92 improvement process in Lino Lakes. She supports the council's decision and the citizen petition 93 request to place on this fall's ballot the adoption of State Statute 429. 94 95 The mayor noted that the council is required to put the petitioned question on the ballot this fall. 96 It is the council's job to decide upon the ballot language. 97 98 Mr. Bubul reviewed the three wording options discussed by the council earlier. The options are 99 to simply state the exact text of the amendment that is included in the petition, to describe the 100 text of the amendment somewhat, or to describe the text of the amendment and highlight that two 101 features of the existing charter would change. The council discussed amendment of the third 102 option to include mention of the referendum but to strike the veto language. 103 104 Council Member O'Donnell moved to approve Resolution No. 08 -98, as amended to include 105 ballot language that reads as follows: 106 107 Should Chapter 8 of the City of Lino Lakes charter be amended to authorize the financing of 108 special assessments using the procedures of Minnesota Statutes, Chapter 429 instead of current 109 City Charter procedures that include a city -wide referendum for most improvements? 110 111 Council Member Stoltz seconded the motion. 112 113 There was a discussion of the history of how the city charter was put in place, how the current 114 charter impacts the city's ability to reconstruct roads, and how more than one charter amendment 115 came forward. Putting more than one amendment on the ballot had been discussed and 116 dismissed by the council. It was suggested by a council member that if the proposed charter 117 amendment (petitioned) is approved, the council should consider some type of opt -out process 118 for residents who strongly do not want their road reconstructed (as was included in the charter 119 amendment proposed by the citizens task force). 120 121 There was an allegation by a council member that unethical meetings and behavior had taken 122 place regarding the matter of the charter amendment petition. 123 124 The allegation was questioned. It was then further explained that the specific allegation is that 125 an illegal meeting took place about six weeks previous to discuss this topic. It was also alleged 126 that the petition came forward with a lot of involvement by the mayor. 127 128 The mayor responded that he was not involved as alleged and further there was no illegal 129 meeting that occurred. 130 -3-