09/08/2008 Council Minutes - Laserfiche WebLink

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APPROVED MINUTES 2 CITY COUNCIL WORK SESSION 3 4 DATE : September 2, 2008 5 TIME STARTED : 5:35 p.m. 6 TIME ENDED : 9:55 p.m. 7 MEMBERS PRESENT : Council Members O'Donnell, Reinert, Gallup, 8 Stoltz and Mayor Bergeson 9 MEMBERS ABSENT : none 10 11 12 Staff members present: City Administrator, Gordon Heitke; Community Development Director, 13 Mike Grochala; Director of Public Safety, Dave Pecchia; Finance Director, Al Rolek; City Clerk, 14 Julie Bartell; Economic Development Coordinator, Mary Alice Divine 15 16 1. Review of Charter Amendment Ballot Questions Administrator Heitke explained that 17 the council basically has two charter amendments on the table — the council's ordinance that has 18 received first reading and was referred to the Charter Commission, and the charter amendment 19 proposal that was submitted by a citizen petition. Based on previous council discussion, 20 Attorney Steve Bubul has drafted ballot questions for both of those amendments. 21 22 Regarding the citizen petition, City Clerk Bartell explained that the process of determining 1023 sufficiency was completed. A memorandum was distributed that updated the council on the 24 petition certification process, one being that after the petition was certified, resident Michael 25 Trehus communicated two concerns: that one section of the petition is invalid because the 26 circulator page was signed before some of the dates on the petition(s) within that section. 27 Attorney Bubul has reviewed that question and determined that in fact the signatures within that 28 section of the petition should be found invalid. He feels the circulator could re-sign the affidavit 29 and resubmit those signatures but it isn't necessary since the valid signature count, minus those 30 invalid signatures totaling eight, would be within the number required. Mr. Trehus' second 31 question has to do with staple holes in the petition pages. 32 33 Attorney Bubul indicated that with the information he has received on the staple question, it 34 would be difficult to determine that the petition is unacceptable for that reason. 35 36 The council requested a written legal response to the issues raised by Mr. Trehus. 37 38 The council discussed the two options for ballot language requested by the council and drafted 39 by the Attorney Steve Bubul. 40 41 Attorney Bubul explained that the council has two mutually exclusive amendments. As far as 42 the possibility of putting two questions on the ballot, he finds that the statute does indicate that 43 when you are initially creating a charter, you can give choices; he thinks that means when you 44 are doing an amendment you can do the same thing. Because of their nature, it seems that if two 45 questions were put on the ballot, it would be necessary to give an option A or B — because they 46 are conflicting. What if you don't want to amend the charter at all - that could be another option