Approved Minutes 11-21-2023 - Laserfiche WebLink

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Mounds View Charter Commission Minutes — APPROVED Tuesday, November 21, 2023 Gary Meehlhause, 7400 Park View Drive. Even though my comments tonight are based on my experience as a City elected official, they are being made as a resident of the City of Mounds View and reflect my thoughts only and do not represent the City Council. In fact, my Council colleagues are not aware of these thoughts nor my intent to present them to the Charter Commission. May 20th was a tragically historic day for the City of Mounds View with the unfortunate passing of my Council colleague and personal friend Al Hull. For the first time in the City’s 65 year history, the office of Mayor became vacate before the Mayor’s term had actually expired. As you know, both the City Charter and state statue provide a mechanism for temporarily filling a Mayor vacancy with the requirement that the City Council appoint a “Acting Mayor” at each year’s first City Council meeting. With the Acting Mayor temporarily filling the vacate Mayor’s seat, the question was asked what happens if the Acting Mayor isn’t available to conduct a Council meeting or sign documents that are time sensitive. The Council obviously got out in front of the Charter Commission by adopting an ordinance creating a “Vice Acting Mayor” appointment in the event the appointed Acting Mayor had to temporarily fill the Mayor’s position. I want to thank the Charter Commission for also recognizing this need, and passing a resolution updating the Charter to reflect this unfortunate scenario. As an update, the Council has unanimously passed the first and second readings for the Charter update. As an aside there was a situation where documents involving a conduit bond financing project had to be signed on a specific date, and this closing would have been impacted if the Acting Mayor wasn’t available and there was no appointed alternate. When the Charter Commission decided to maintain the Charter’s present requirement that any Council vacancy would be filled through a special election if there was 365 or more days left in the term, I thanked the Commission for at least giving consideration to changing this time frame. I did also indicate that I could think of a scenario where the Council could operate as a 4 member Council for 5 to 6 months because of the State Legislature’s decision to define only specific months for holding a special election. The Mounds View City Council has been officially operating as a 4 person Council since May 20th and in reality since April 1st when Mayor Hull began his chemo treatments as the last City Council meeting he officially led was the second meeting in March. Thus, the Council has operated as a 4 person Council for 7 months. With Council member Linstrom’s election to Mayor on November 7th, the Council will continue to act as a 4 person Council until next April’s special election to fill the remainder of Mayor Lindstrom’s council term. Thus, the Council will have operated as a 4 person Council for one year. A 4 person Council obviously can work, but it is not an ideal scenario particularly when it becomes 5 or more months. Major decisions can be decided by the opposition of 2 votes rather than 3 votes for or against. I will also tell you there are other items that are not time sensitive that the current 4 person Council has chosen to table until there is a 5 person Council. I personally recommended tabling one item I am opposed to because I wanted it to either pass or fail on a 3 – 2 vote rather than fail with 2 votes which was the likely outcome. There is another scenario that could happen with full recognition that the odds of it occurring is remote. With the current 4 person Council, there is no current solution provided by the City Charter in the event not one but two additional seats became unexpectedly vacant. I know City Attorney Joe Sathe has provided a memo to the Commission related to Council vacancies, and thus I won’t elaborate any further in that regard. My primary purpose for speaking tonight is I believe the Charter Commission needs to revisit the process for filling an open Council seat when the seat is going to be vacant for 5+ months. I support filling the seat as soon as a special election can be held. However, I believe there should be some Charter approved appointment process to temporarily fill the vacancy until the election can occur. A statuary City has this option, and it was exercised in 2022 by both Shoreview and Arden Hills, and in Shoreview’s situation the vacancy occurred in the 4th year of the Council term. Page 3 of 4