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Mounds View City Council May 22, 2000 Regular Meeting Page 12 E. 1. Discussion and First Reading of Ordinance No. 661, Charter Amendments to Provide for a City Manager form of Government. 2. Discussion and First Reading of Ordinance No. 662, Proposing an Amendment to the Mounds View Charter by Amending Chapter 2, Section 2.03 of the Charter of the City of Mounds View as to Council Composition and Election in the City. City Attorney Long stated Ordinance 661 was presented to the Council in draft form at an earlier meeting. He advised that Section 1 of the ordinance would delete the current Chapter 6 of the Charter, which refers to the current City Administrator form of government, and insert an entire new Chapter 6, which is based upon the City Manager powers and duties. He indicated there were a couple of places in Section 2 of the ordinance, where they would need to refer to the City Manager form of government, rather than the Mayor and Council plan, and the balance of the ordinance replaces the term City Clerk Administrator with City Manager, wherever it appears in the Sections of the Charter. City Attorney Long advised that the only other substantive changes were set forth in Section 2.09, which designates that the City Manager is in charge of administration, which provides that Council Members would direct their policy directives through the City Manager, who in turn, would be responsible for the management of staff. He indicated Section 3 amends Section 7 by adding new Sections 7.13 and 7.14, which was required in order to provide the City Manager with official authority over the disbursement of funds and the accounting role. He explained the City would still have a Finance Officer who would operate under the City Manager, however, this would clarify that the City Manager has the ultimate responsibility for these duties. City Attorney Long stated Ordinance 662 proposes a change from the two-year Mayoral term to a four-year term of office. He indicated the Council requested he research this matter to determine the term lengths utilized by other cities. He advised that in 1996, the League of Minnesota Cities conducted a survey of Charter cities, and the survey results indicate that the majority of the charter cities have established a four-year term of office for Council members, which the City currently has, and of the 106 charter cities surveyed, 55 have four-year Mayoral terms, 10 have three-year terms, and 41 have two-year terms. He stated the majority of charter cities in the State of Minnesota have four-year terms for Mayor, and this provision proposes to make that change. City Attorney Long advised that procedurally, if the Council approves the First Reading of these two ordinances at this time, and a Second Reading at their next meeting, under State Statute they would not be adopting the ordinances to go into the Charter, as was the case with the previous corrective changes, but rather, the ordinances would go to the Charter Commission for their review. He indicated the Charter Commission would have a 60-day period in which to examine the ordinances, and could request additional time for review, if necessary. He explained that if the Charter Commission were to agree with these ordinances, the Council could, by unanimous vote, adopt them without going to the ballot, however, if the Charter Commission does not agree, or suggests changes to the ordinances, the Council would have the option to accept or reject those changes, and ultimately place the ordinances on the ballot for the next election.