CC MINUTES 12211988 - Laserfiche WebLink

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D 1 technical adviser. He also pointed out that with the City being in two 2 counties, it might be quite difficult for staff to actively attend all 3 of the meetings of both Ramsey and Hennepin County railroad authorities. 4 Mayor Sundland suggested Councilmember Makowske bring up the issue of 5 daytime meetings at a future meeting of the Ramsey County League of 6 Local Governments. Her response was that she would be glad to do so. 7 DEPARTMENT AND COMMITTEE REPORTS 8 Before the Hance & LeVahn Report on cases the law firm had prosecuted 9 in the Hennepin County District Court up to December 7th was filed, 10 Councilmember Makowske requested clarification of the comments in the 11 report which stated the Judge in several cases had "continued charges 12 for dismissal without City Prosecutor's approval." Mr. Childs told her 13 he suspected this was a disagreement the Prosecutor had with this 14 particular judge's decisions because it is supposed to be up to the 15 Prosecutor and not the judge, to decide or make recommendations of 16 whether or not charges are to be reduced or plea bargained and it would 17 then be up to the judge to affirm or not to affirm that position. The 18 City Manager said he anticipated the City Prosecutor would be submitting 19 a memo to the Council explaining his position and laying out the options 20 for appeal which he may want to pursue. 21 Councilmember Marks reported the perspectives he had recently received 22 on the inequities in sentencing whites and blacks from a person doing 23 research for a State Senator on the sentencing guidelines which seemed -4 to indicate the widening gap was a result of too much discretion on the i part of prosecutors and judges permitted under the current guidelines. 26 The Councilmember indicated the legislator in question was working on 27 rewriting legislation on the sentencing guidelines during the next 28 session. 29 CITY MANAGER REPORTS 30 Mr. Childs returned the holiday best wishes to the Mayor and 31 Councilmembers before proceeding with his own report. 32 33 34 Mr. Childs reported that he had discussed the above informal joint 35 meeting with the Superintendent of Schools, who had suggested the event 36 be held the last Monday evening in January. He said that although the 37 intent had been to have a "non -meeting", which would be purely social 38 in nature, the Open Meeting Law probably required publishing the get 39 together. 40 Army Inconsistent in Its Last "Sticking Point" for Settling Water 41 Contamination Litigation with St. Anthony 42 Copies of a letter proposed to be sent on the above had been distributed 'k to the Councilmembers prior to the meeting. Mr. Childs explained that