HomeMy WebLinkAbout2003-12-06 Commission Memo to Council re Quorum Membership and Processm v City of
Mounds
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Charter Commission
Chair
Jonathan J Thomas
763-784-5205
Vice Chair
Michele Sandback
763-783-1770
2nd Vice Chair
Daniel Freimuth
763-780-3371
Secretary
Brian Amundsen
763-786-5699
Bill Doty
763-786-3421
Matthew Eenigenburg
763-783-7216
Jean Miller
763-786-3959
William Mori
763-784-3645
Barbara Thomas
763-780-6226
William Werner Sr
763-784-3603
December 6, 2003
Response to City Council comments of Nov. 24th regarding requests from the Mounds
View Charter Commission, Jonathan J Thomas, Chair.
First, I would like to apologize for not being able to attend the meeting where the Charter
issues were discussed. It was a very great disappointment to watch a replay of the
meeting after having been called by a resident and asked to do so, because it seemed that
the members of the City Council were apparently not given the necessary information to
be able to reasonably discuss and proceed on the items the Charter commission had sent
them for review. For the record, there were no issues raised that had not been clearly and
publicly presented already. I will attempt to list the issues that seemed to be raised and
state a simple brief response. All of the actions and many comments regarding these
issues are recorded in the minutes that are filed in the Charter Commission Public Book
which is available for review to the public at City Hall, and at every meeting of the
Charter Commission.
Has the Charter Commission done any business without a quorum ?
No; the Charter Commission operates according to its Bylaws that state in
Article III section 3:
“A majority of qualified and acting members shall constitute a quorum for the
purpose of conducting the Commission’s business and exercising its powers and
for all other purposes, but a smaller number of members may adjourn from time
to time.” To clarify this, the number of members required to vote on issues must
be more than half the number of currently active members. This means that if
there are 9 active members, a quorum would be 5. We currently have 10 active
members so a quorum is 6.
Was changing the number of members from 15 to 11 done properly ?
Due to the difficulty in maintaining a roster of 15 members a significant amount
of discussion with the current and previous District Court Judges and Clerk of the
District Court was used to evaluate the proper consideration and process, which
ended up in the recommendation that the Charter Commission amend its Bylaws
and send a copy of the amendment to the District Court which would then change
its records to reflect the new roster requirements. As we had less than the 11
acting members at the time it did not impact any members serving at the time.
The amendment was Adopted by unanimous approval of the nine members
present at the June 12, 2003 meeting of the Charter Commission.
Is it proper to use “replacement language” for a portion of the Charter, and if so
does the entire text need to be underlined ?
Where the order and association of ideas is substantial enough to make the
“Strikeout/Underline” method confusing, it is common practice to use the
“Replacement Language” method. As to the question of style, it is stated in the
header and there is no statute requirement or suggestion for the style to be used.