Resolution 6649 - Laserfiche WebLink

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The orders of the city council as to which the referendum is sought in the case at bar • are clearly executive and not legislative in their nature. A direction to an officer to sign a specified contract with a named person to do a defined thing for a specified price is not a legislative act... It is not the laying_down of a rule, a rinciple or a law by which the conduct of a public officer maybe guided. Id. (emphasis added). General legislative acts lay down some permanent and uniform rule of law, administrative acts relate to daily administration of municipal affairs, and quasi judicial acts are the product of investigation, consideration and deliberate human judgment based upon evidentiary facts of some sort. Hanson, 529 N.W.2d at 488. The Mounds View City Council adopted an ordinance authorizing the conveyance of real property from the City to the EDA. Although Minnesota courts have not directly held that the sale of real property is an administrative, rather than a legislative act, the case law strongly supports this argument. As an administrative act, the sale of property is not subject to referendum. Moreover, the ordinance authorizing the sale is an ordinance authorizing a contract for the conveyance of property. And, courts have held that entering into a contract is an administrative act. The sale of property does not establish a permanent or uniform rule of law; rather, it is an administrative act that is part of the day-to-day business activities of the City. Also, the fact that the Council authorized the sale by ordinance should not change the conclusion. In the Oakman case, the city adopted an ordinance approving a settlement and the court, nonetheless, held that the ordinance was the exercise of an administrative function. If administrative acts, such as the sale of property, were subject to referendum, it would defeat not only the purpose of referendum, but make it highly impractical and inefficient for the City to conduct its daily business affairs. Under the case law, a court would likely find that the sale of real property is an administrative, not a legislative, act. Thus, the ordinance authorizing the sale is not subject to referendum and the City Council may deny the sufficiency of a petition on this basis. II. State Law Allows the City to Convey Property Without Regard to City Charter Provisions. Two state statutes provide .support for this argument. A. Minn. Stat. § 471.64. The first statute, Minn. Stat. § 471.64, authorizes the City to enter into a contract for the sale of real property to another political subdivision without regard to charter provisions: Any county, city, town, ... or other political subdivision of the state may enter into any contract with ...any other political subdivision of the state for the purchase, lease, sale, ... of real property, without regard to statutor~or charter provisions .. . ~J SJR-268835v3 MU205-30 A-3