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m v City of <br /> Mounds <br />View <br />Charter Commission <br />Chair <br />Jonathan J Thomas <br />763-784-5205 <br />Vice Chair <br />Michele Sandback <br />763-783-1770 <br />2nd Vice Chair <br />Daniel Freimuth <br />763-780-3371 <br />Secretary <br />Brian Amundsen <br />763-786-5699 <br />Bill Doty <br />763-786-3421 <br />Matthew Eenigenburg <br />763-783-7216 <br />Jean Miller <br />763-786-3959 <br />William Mori <br />763-784-3645 <br />Barbara Thomas <br />763-780-6226 <br />William Werner Sr <br />763-784-3603 <br />Date:May 10, 2004 <br />To: Mounds View City Council <br />From:Jonathan Thomas, Chair, Mounds View Charter Commission <br />RE:Charter Commission Agenda Items for Monday May 9, 2004 <br />In regard to the specific agenda items for Monday May 9, 2004, regarding resolutions 2003-04 <br />and 2003-05, submitted by the Charter Commission, we would like to provide some additional <br />background on the discussions held by the Charter Commission. <br />Resolution 2003-04 <br />In Chapter 2, Section 2.06, you will find a proposed amendment to the language related to the <br />duties of the Mayor. To provide background for this discussion, this is an ongoing issue from City <br />Staff memos and members of the public maintained in Charter records. The opinions expressed in <br />these discussions were that current language which states the Mayor “shall have a vote as a <br />member.... but shall have no administrative duties”, could be interpreted to mean that the Mayor <br />was not allowed to participate in discussions pertaining to city policy even during the performance <br />of Council duties. This resolution should clarify the meaning to be that the Mayor has no <br />administrative authority as an individual outside of the duties of the Council but that when <br />administrative functions are performed by the Council, the Mayor is entitled to participate. <br />In section 4.05 we have recommended language to clarify the procedure used for filling vacancies <br />on the City Council due to a possibility for misinterpretation of the existing language and even <br />though the timing of a candidate filing a vacancy is covered by MN Statute it was determined to be <br />important to add the language for consistency and clarity. <br />In section 9.01 the additional reference to “as amended” for the reference to MN Statute is for <br />consistency where the intention of the Charter is to be concurrent with rather than to take <br />precedence over the referenced statute. <br />Resolution 2003-05 <br />A significant effort by the Charter Commission was used on Chapter 5 to implement changes for <br />clarity and consistency, not as a proposal of new policies regarding Initiative, Referendum and <br />Recall. Previous inconsistencies and a construct that did not clearly present the time lines, resulted <br />in our choice to use a replacement language style. <br />Summary <br />We would like to restate that the current resolutions that have been submitted to the Council for <br />review are all intended to be clarifications to Charter language only, with the intent that the <br />Council would be able to unanimously approve them for submission by Ordinance without <br />requiring a ballot question. We realize that there may additional issues to be considered beyond <br />the scope of language clarification. If there are additional amendments that would require <br />substantive changes to these sections that the City Council would like to propose, the Charter <br />Commission would review those issues with the intention of placing them on the ballot. We look <br />forward to hearing the Council’s opinion on the resolutions we have proposed.