HomeMy WebLinkAboutMemo re Charter Decision - June 2011
M EMORANDUM
to: Mounds View City Council
from: Jim Ericson, City Administrator
re: Charter Commission Memo
date:
June 29, 2011
Today I received the attached memo from the Charter Commission relating to a request made earlier
this year (or later last year) to make certain notification timeframes outlined in the City Charter all
consistent. The request stemmed from a recent amendment to the City Charter which provided
authority for the City to assess unpaid (property related) administrative offense fines to property
owners’ taxes as a special assessment. (See City Charter Section 8.06, enacted in 2008 by approval of
Ordinance 810.)
The City requested the Charter Commission consider a revision so that the notification timeframes in
Section 8.06 would be two weeks, the same notification timeframe as stated in City Charter sections
8.04 and 8.05. The two weeks relates to the amount of notice required to be provided to a property
owner alerting them to the City’s intent to certify a special assessment against their property taxes.
Section 8.04 relates to special assessments for a local improvement project, such as a street project or
a sewer project. Typically, assessments of this kind can exceed two or three thousand dollars. Such
an assessment would require a two-week notice. In section 8.05 of the Charter, unpaid utility bills or
diseased tree removals can be assessed, again, with a two-week notice. These assessments can be
many hundreds of dollars or even a thousand or more. In the case of Section 8.06, unpaid property
based administrative offense fines, the typical assessment would be $150. Contrary to Sections 8.04
and 8.05, a THIRTY DAY notice is required. Aside from the inconsistency issue, staff argued that it
seemed backwards to require the GREATEST notification period for the SMALLEST of assessments.
The Charter Commission has responded that they are not willing to decrease the notification period
stated in Section 8.06 but would be willing to INCREASE the periods in 8.04 and 8.05 to thirty days
to achieve the staff-desired consistency. The Commission correctly presumed however that the City
would prefer no change over making all notification periods thirty days.
My only confusion with their decision was the following statement:
“…we were not comfortable infringing on publicly voted notification requirements…”
As I stated above, the notification period as outlined in Section 8.06 was enacted by ordinance after a
recommendation by the Commission. The thirty-day requirement was chosen by the Commission
without any vote of the public.
In summary, while it would have been preferable to have the notification period in Section 8.06
reduced to two weeks, the thirty day requirement has not and will not pose any problems, especially
given the limited frequency of such assessments.