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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 8, 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 related to Charter Commission proposed changes, we would like to <br />provide some additional background on the discussions held by the Charter Commission. They center <br />specifically around changes to Chapter 5 and Chapter 2. <br />Recently, City Attorney Riggs provided an opinion to the City Council related to the constitutionality of the <br />Recall provisions included in Chapter 5. The Charter Commission did discuss this during our efforts on <br />Sections 5.01-.08. We feel it is important for the City Council to know that the changes we are proposing for <br />these sections are for clarity and consistency, not as a proposal of new city policy regarding elections. Since this <br />is not intended to be a substantive change to the Charter, we felt removing sections in their entirety was beyond <br />the scope of the resolution. We dealt with a similar constitutionality question with Chapter 4, Section 4.02 <br />Subdivision 2 regarding Term Limits. The Commission and the City Council determined at that time that the <br />most appropriate method to amend the language was simply to footnote the section with the required legal <br />disclosure that this portion of the Charter has been determined to be unconstitutional. It is the recommendation <br />of the Mounds View Charter Commission to maintain this method when needed as here in Chapter 5. <br />In Chapter 2, Section 2.06, you will find proposed changes for the duties of the Mayor. To provide background <br />for this discussion, this is an ongoing issue from City Staff memos and members of the public maintained in <br />Charter records. The opinions expressed in these discussions was that the current language that the Mayor <br />“shall have a vote as a member... but shall have no administrative duties” could be interpreted to mean that the <br />Mayor was not allowed to participate in discussions pertaining to city policy even during the performance of <br />Council duties. This resolution should clarify the meaning to be that the Mayor has no administrative authority <br />as an individual outside of the duties of the Council but that where administrative functions are performed by the <br />Council, the Mayor is entitled to participate. <br />We would like to restate that the current resolutions that have been submitted to the Council for review are all <br />intended to be clarifications to Charter language only with the intent that the Council would be able to <br />unanimously approve them for submission by ordinance without requiring a ballot question. If there are <br />additional amendments to these sections that the City Council would like to propose that would require <br />substantive changes, the Charter Commission would review those issues with the intention of placing them on <br />the ballot. We look forward to hearing the Council’s opinion on the resolutions we have proposed.