Agenda Packets - 2003/06/23 - Laserfiche WebLink

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Mounds View City Council June 9, 2003 Regular Meeting Page 5 Senator Betzhold indicated he and Representative Bernardy had come to Council to provide an 1 update on the legislative session as they had promised at the start of the session. He then 2 reviewed with Council some of the things that were accomplished as well as things that did not 3 pass during the last session. 4 5 Senator Betzhold reviewed some of the policy changes that were made such as the 2:00 a.m. bar 6 closing, changing the precinct caucus date, etc. He then reviewed some bills that were presented 7 as something and ended up something else. 8 9 Senator Betzhold indicated he has had better years and commented that this was an especially 10 brutal session. 11 12 Representative Bernardy indicated it is an honor to represent the City of Mounds View and 13 indicated she received many emails and calls from concerned residents and she is impressed with 14 the involvement of the residents in state politics. 15 16 Representative Bernardy indicated she wanted to make sure people understand that a lot of one 17 time money was used to take care of this budget but the hole still exists for next time as $1.7 18 million of one time money was used to fill the hole. She further commented that the theme was 19 no state wide tax raises but all fees were increased and residents can expect that the cities will 20 have to raise taxes to make up the difference. 21 22 Representative Bernardy invited residents to contact her by telephone or email at 23 rep.connie.bernardy @house.mn or at 763/571-0015. She then said that there are ways to solve 24 the problem such as making the taxes that those making more than half a million pay as they only 25 pay 7 to 9 percent where the average person pays 12 percent. Making a change to that would 26 have helped a lot. She also indicated that education suffered with this session and schools will 27 just be making their payments but getting nothing new. 28 29 Mayor Linke indicated that later in the meeting he would be asking Council to consider 30 indicating that guns are not welcome on public lands within the City of Mounds View similar to 31 what Duluth and other cities have done. He then said that Council is on the front lines of where 32 the anger is when something happens and it concerns him that residents can bring guns into City 33 Hall. 34 35 Senator Betzhold indicated he did not support the bill at all and people disagree but the original 36 issue came about because some law enforcement officials were issuing permits like candy and 37 others were refusing to do so. He then said that the votes were there to pass any bill the 38 proponents wanted and now the State of Minnesota has a bill that even Texas would not dream of 39 passing and now some officials are beginning to realize there are flaws in the bill and he saw that 40 before it was ever passed. 41 42 Representative Bernardy indicated that right now there are no restrictions for public buildings in 43 the bill and she has already introduced a bill that would allow cities to decide if they want guns in 44