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11111 would be making a politically popular choice among many voters. On the other hand, the city will have spent a lot of money on a useless election and will still have some legal fees when the provision is challenged. In addition, such acquiescence could be used by term limit supporters as a sign of . support for changing the State Constitution or for having State imposed term limits , actions generally opposed by city leaders and by the League. Second, the city could seek a declaratory judgement on the constitutionality of term limits. This preemptive strike is favored by some cities as a hope of obtaining a relatively fast and definite resolution to the problem. Such an action, however, places the full financial burden on the city, and there is a possibility that the judge would refuse to hear the case for lack of standing by the city as an entity. Jerre Miller, the city attorney in Hopkins is interested in pursuing this option if there is support from other cities. The League is willing to assist in coordinating cities interested in joining with Hopkins to investigate the feasibility of this choice. A private tax payer opposed to the expense of the election-might also be able to seek a declaratory judgement and injunctive relief should the council decide to proceed with the election as discussed under option number one. The third option would be for the city council to refuse to accept the validity of the petition or commission proposal and therefore refuse to hold the election on this issue. The result of this action would III likely be a writ of mandamus action by either the petition's sponsors or the charter commission seeking a judicial order that the city hold the referendum. At the writ hearing, the city would attempt to convince the judge not to issue the writ as it would not make sense to force the city to spend money on election to adopt a clearly unconstitutional amendment that would certainly be struck down upon adoption. This option has precedence for succeeding. Joe LaBat of the Minneapolis City Attorney's office has researched this option in detail and Minneapolis has successfully taken this approach on other referendum issues of certain unconstitutionality. He is formally recommending that the council follow this approach again on the issue of term limits, although the council has not yet made its decision. Floyd Olson, also of Minneapolis, stated that he successfully used this approach while city attorney in Bloomington. There are two cases supporting this third option, which is relatively inexpensive to the city and bears only the risk of receiving a judicial order to hold the election: HRA v. City of Minneapolis, 293 Minn. 227 , 198 N.W. 2d 531 (1972) , and State Ex Rel Andrews v. Beach, 155 Minn. 33 , 191 N.W. 1012 (1928) . In these cases, the courts held that while a city usually has no discretion on whether or not to hold a referendum when it receives a valid petition under M. S. chapter 410, such an election can be enjoined when the subject matter of the referendum is manifestly unconstitutional . In summary, the courts held that there was no sense in subjecting the city, its 4110 administration and citizens to the expense and frustrations of an election on an issue that knowingly would be ultimately struck down by the courts following its adoption at the election. It follows,