Agenda Packets - 2005/09/26 - Laserfiche WebLink

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Mounds View City Council August 22, 2005 Regular Meeting Page 41 1 Mayor Marty stated he does not want that line of discussion to continue. He stated that he knows 2 City Administrator Ulrich and his staff worked very hard on certifying the signatures and if one 3 person couldn’t read it the signature was viewed by others and cross referenced through 4 addresses and utility billing. 5 6 Brian Amundsen, 3048 Woodale Drive, stated he supports a City wide referendum, whether 7 advisory or actual referendum, Primarily because it answers the question by the entire community 8 and is not on the backs of five people. The referendum will say if the City, all residents, really 9 favor this deal. He suggested that case law is very specific to the case and cannot be applied 10 generally to any other case of other situations. Mr. Amundsen noted this came up with the 11 placement of the Ten Commandments; the cases appeared to be the same but came to two 12 different conclusions. 13 14 Mr. Amundsen asked whether, in fact, the ordinance has a legislative component since the 15 ordinance includes both the sale of property as well as approval of TIF Districts, establishment of 16 a taxing mechanism and taxing deferment, which was approved by legislative action by the 17 Legislature. He stated that sufficiency is a measure of the number of registered voters and clearly 18 there appears to not be a sufficient number. That is why there are additional steps allowed to 19 citizens in order to proceed. He stated that is how it should proceed, at this point, for the Clerk 20 Administrator to notify the Council and petition committee of the insufficiency and for the 21 committee to take action. He stated his opinion that the Council should take no action. He stated 22 the Charter Commission is currently working on Chapter 5 to provide additional clarity. 23 24 Mr. McCarty stated assuming that the petition were to be valid and the Council agrees, there is an 25 opportunity to correct the deficiency. He agreed that no decision should be made on the number 26 of qualified voters that would bring this petition in as sufficient. Mr. McCarty stated that it 27 should be decided by all residents after full debate and the opportunity for Medtronic to put their 28 position forward. He stated he thinks as many voters will appear at the polls as appeared at the 29 last general election. Mr. McCarty urged the Council to not “gut the Charter” and stated he can 30 accept stepping back to an advisory referendum to assure the details are worked out. 31 32 Jan Brink asked about the phone survey. Mayor Marty stated it was a City-wide telephone 33 survey and 400 people were involved. He stated that she can get a copy of the survey if she’d 34 like. 35 36 Ms. Brink asked if the respondents were certified registered voters. 37 38 Councilmember Flaherty explained the survey was just one of the many tools that were used in 39 the Council’s decision making process. Other tools included talking with Ehlers, discussion with 40 staff, and several meetings held to accept public input, which was the most important. 41 42 Ms. Brink stated she is concerned their opinion is more important to the Council than those who 43 signed the petition. 44 45