09/08/2008 Council Minutes (3) - Laserfiche WebLink

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COUNCIL MINUTES September 8, 2008 APPROVED IRS was submitted. With the supplemental signatures, the petition was then found to be sufficient 6 and therefore was certified. State statute designates that the governing body (the city council in 87 this case) shall fix the form of the ballot for all amendments. The City's attorney, Steven Bubul, 88 has prepared a resolution relative to ballot language for the citizen proposed charter amendment. 89 It contains options for council consideration. 90 91 Laura Carlson, 585 Ash Street, former Visioning Group and Citizen's Task Force member read a 92 statement relative to her education on and experience with the city charter and the public 93 improvement process in Lino Lakes. She supports the council's decision and the citizen petition 94 request to place on this fall's ballot the adoption of State Statute 429. 95 96 The mayor noted that the council is required to put the petitioned question on the ballot this fall. 97 It is the council's job to decide upon the ballot language. 98 99 Mr. Bubul reviewed the three wording options discussed by the council earlier. The options are 100 to simply state the exact text of the amendment that is included in the petition, to describe the 101 text of the amendment somewhat, or to describe the text of the amendment and highlight that two 102 features of the existing charter would change. The council discussed amendment of the third 103 option to include mention of the referendum but to strike the veto language. 104 105 Council Member O'Donnell moved to approve Resolution No. 08-98, as amended toinclude 106 ballot language that reads as follows: li7 08 Should Chapter 8 of the City of Lino Lakes charter be amended to authorize the financing of 109 special assessments using the procedures of Minnesota Statutes, Chapter 429 instead of current 110 City Charter procedures that include a city-wide referendum for most improvements? 111 112 Council Member Stoltz seconded the motion. 113 114 There was a discussion of the history of how the city charter was put in place, how the current 115 charter impacts the city's ability to reconstruct roads, and how more than one charter amendment 116 came forward. Putting more than one amendment on the ballot had been discussed and 117 dismissed by the council. It was suggested by a council member that if the proposed charter 118 amendment (petitioned) is approved, the council should consider some type of opt -out process 119 for residents who strongly do not want their road reconstructed (as was included in the charter 120 amendment proposed by the citizens task force). 121 122 There was an allegation by a council member that unethical meetings and behavior had taken 123 place regarding the matter of the charter amendment petition. 124 125 The allegation was questioned. It was then further explained that the specific allegation is that 126 an illegal meeting took place about six weeks previous to discuss this topic. It was also alleged 127 that the petition came forward with a lot of involvement by the mayor. 128 �29 The mayor responded that he was not involved as alleged and further there was no illegal 130 meeting that occurred. -3-