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MEMO February 23, 1999 To: Charter Commission Members From: Laurie Schley, Acting Chair Re: March meeting By now you should have received the notice of our first meeting for this year. After taking care of approving meeting minutes, I want to suggest that we spend most of this meeting discussing what the purpose is of the Charter Commission. When I became a member more than six years ago, the Commission embarked upon a process to modernize the charter. In part, our interest was in having a document that reflected everyday language usage. Many of us also felt that the Charter needed clarifications in some areas and updates in others. We used a consensual process for modifications and agreed that we would wait to forward any suggested changes to the Council until we felt we had completed a thorough review of the entire charter document. The version of the charter enclosed, with the footer"95-1," represents the summary of proposed changes to the current charter for the City and our work over those many years. The changes are numerous; many are minor. Others are more substantial in nature. For reasons too numerous to list here, this work was never fully completed. It was never forwarded to the Council for their adoption, much less to hear their reaction. The process of developing version 95-1 was long, cumbersome and made for many difficult meetings. I believe this was good work. However, membership changed and the interests of individuals relative to amending the charter changed over time. I believe this is the primary reason why the Charter Commission has not met to discuss anything of substance for more than a year and a half. Consequently, I think it is time to start anew with our new members. I believe that the Charter Commission will only be successful in whatever it chooses to pursue if the members believe in the purpose of our work together. We lost that sense of purpose over the years. I encourage you to have a look at these two documents before our meeting next month. I will suggest that we spend the majority of our time that evening discussion what we see as the work of the Commission. If it is to continue the revisions represented in 95-1, great. If not, then I, as Acting Chair, will push the group to come to some agreement about the direction it intends to pursue as a Commission. Thanks. I look forward to seeing everybody on March 11 @ 7:00 p.m. Laurie Ohmann Vice President Visit our web site! www.psgrp.com