Okay, chair, you would like to call this meeting to order. Okay, I will call the charter commission meeting of Thursday 2025 to order. We need a roll call or um I can't remember that. I don't know that we need roll call chair, but it's
helpful to get the for the recording secretary. You can do that then. Um Rod Axel, Ronald Barnes here. Karen Linquist. Lenquist was saying to
here, John Eagle here. Kathy Gusen is a she indicated that she was unable to attend. Cynthia Hunt here. Rana Lindell here. J Maja here. Jeanie McGovern.
Emily Melby here. Uh I haven't perfected this name yet. Ling lingala oru here. Michael Ramirez here. Welcome. Thank you. Mark Thorson here.
You have a quorum. Thank you. Um so before um before we get started on the agenda, I want to welcome Michael to the chair commission. Um, and typically what we do when we have somebody new is we kind of go around and introduce ourselves. So I'll I'll kind of kick it off and just kind of go around this way
and take. So I'm Steve Peterson. I think I've been cursed of being the chair for two years now I think and decided to give it up and I didn't quickly enough appoint you to propose somebody else to do it. Um, my history kind of with being
involved in kind of city affairs is I got involved in the planning commission in 1996. I was elected to the city council starting in 2000. I was on the city council from 2000 until 2000 the beginning of 2014. Um and I'm involved in the charter
commission and I'm also a member of the board of the port authority at the city. Yeah. So Juj I've been on the commission for almost two years now surprising. Um yeah
it's me first commission first commission for me in the city of Bloomington. So cool. Uh Mark Thorson. Um I've been on a number of commissions over many many years. Uh primarily planning housing and redevelopment authority and now the
charter commission. Uh, Mike, lived in Bloomington for since 2017. Work in city government. I work in parks and recreation. I used to work for the city of Bloomington and now I work for the city of Egan. So happy to be
here. Yeahelcome here. I do still live here. Yes, that's the Yes, absolutely. Otherwise, we'd have to take a look. I I do live here. I have my loyalty is to Bloomington, folks.
He signed me. There we go. Well, welcome John Eagle. Uh uh I think this is my second year on and um a heating air conditioning business in Bloomington. Lived here for 46 years I think it is
now. So welcome. Emily Melby. Um I've lived in Bloomington since 2014. um and have been on the charter commission for three weeks.
Cynthia Hunt, I uh many many years ago was on the planning commission. had the pleasure of serving at various points with Mark and Steve um and then was on um well started on this many many years ago um after planning and also was on
the Bloomington on the board of the Bloomington Convention of Visitors Brow Too and then I've also been on um the Port Authority as commissioner for a number of years. So welcome to our group. Hi Michael. I'm Ronalyn Del and I've been a member of
this commission I think this is my I'm into my second term now. So what are we four year five but anyway that's yeah and um I too did work in municipal government for 40 years. I worked for the city of South
St. Paul as the community development director, housing authority director. So I have do have come with some background in in government and um and I live I've lived in Bloomington since 1987. I'm Ronald Barnes. I've been on
the commission my second term. Um I've been for 30 years. um that I'm having there. Jamie Hensson, city clerk, and I'm
Melissa Manderside, a charter attorney, and I'm coming up on my 9th anniversary with the city of Bloomington. Time flies. And you're having fun. I'll call 2.1, a periodic review of the city charter. Take it away. All right. Uh
chair and members, endeavor to share my screen. I made a PowerPoint slide which is in your packet. Oops, I keep using the wrong mouse. Um, which is in your packet and um, sure. Um so we have um as you recall we've
been marching through the charter um chapter by chapter and at our last meeting we covered a couple of chapters um specifically two and six and uh during the meeting tonight we are um
looking into uh chapter 5 which as if you might remember talks about um initiative, referendum and review or uh recall, excuse me. So, we're doing chapter five here. We've got uh 12 total chapters and we'll
be tackling the next three more chapters next year. Right? As you recall, we we showed this slide at the last meeting to highlight the quantity of sections in this particular chapter and and the reason that we're having it as a
standalone. And so we're going to, as we have done with each uh of these conversations, we're going to go section by section interrupt at any time with questions. And I have the city clerk here um and I appreciate her participation in this conversation as
well. As you'll see, almost every section involves some action by the city council, our city clerk. Um, so it's helpful to have her here and she's done some number crunching as well. That'll be helpful for us. All right, next slide. Right, any questions before we
get started? Section one. All right. So, section one talks about at a high level the powers of the people. As you as we've talked about in the past, the the essence of a city charter is
that you have reserved for the reserved powers for the people and they are able to have special powers that a statutory city they would not have. So specifically, and not every charter city has all three of these powers, in Bloomington, you have all three in your
charter. You have initiative, and I'll I'll I'll explain these in really simplistic terms, and you'll see them flushed out more as we go through the the the chap chapter, but essentially, I think you can think of as initiative as the power to start something, the power
to make law. Uh similar to like the legislature, it's the the ability to initiate new laws. referendum um or as we see here referral uh is the power to pull back on a law that the council
has already acted on. So essentially like a veto power um of an existing law and then recall is the power to remove officials. All right? And those terms are roughly the same in every charter in
Minnesota that uses these powers. All right? So, with regard to um all three of these, all three of these, um it should come as no surprise to everyone that you can't pay people or
give them a gift for their signature. That's what this this section says. But it doesn't prohibit you from using legal um services or consultants and that sort of um outside assistance to prepare the work that's required. But you can't pay somebody um or give them
some sort of reward for in exchange for his signature. All right. And then the council can also adopt additional regulations um to implement uh these specific steps um in this charter. Hey,
can we go back to 5.02 first? Sure. Um on that first sentence, it also seems like you can't be paid to circulate the petition. So you couldn't hire people to go is that right to prevent it from doing that.
I think you could probably read it to mean that as well because it says you can't yeah render in connection with the circulation. So yeah, I would agree. Okay. So it would have to be your committee and its volunteer. Yeah. Not like your campaign herself.
Yeah. Yep. All right. So, people have questions just where you're headed. All right. So, this is the the first batch of sections that have to do with initiative. So, and you'll see some um a couple of years
ago, you look at the history down here. A couple of years ago, we went through in response to some questions from citizens. We did if you might some of you might remember we did a bit of cleanup in chapter 5 and tried tried to uh create some commonalities between
these so that it wasn't such a unique process with each one of them. Um so for example we created a petition form for each of them things like that just to help people um achieve what they were trying to achieve because we were getting a little bit of feedback that people didn't necessarily understand. So
we had done some cleanup back in in 21 to help people. So there is a lot of repetition and you'll hear that um and that some of that is on purpose to try and make some of these steps the same at um in each of the three. Okay, so on to
the onto the show. Okay, so each one of these has a committee that has to be formed by five Bloomington registered voters. They have to establish a committee and in the instance of an initiative they have to essentially create an ordinance which is how we act
to create laws in at the city level. So they have to submit their draft ordinance to to me the city attorney um along with a purpose statement and then I am um required to approve it or put it into a legally sufficient form fit for
its purpose or if I fail to do that then it's considered legal and they can keep moving forward. Um this I will say from my experience comes up because there's things on the internet like petition.org and things like that. So sometimes people will circulate them and then I
will find out about it and it's unclear sometimes whether they are trying to do this process 5.04 and so when we get something all the staff have been reminded like if you see something that says petition on it or it's seeming like
it's trying to start a new law you need to let me know right away um because I want to get in touch with them. oftentimes there's like a committee or some sort of organizer and I'll get we'll get in touch with them. We'll send them a letter and say uh we want to clarify that you are you know are you
trying to do what what 5.04 is or or are you doing some other approach. So we have a system in place to address that because the clock starts ticking. All right. Um so if it um once it is uh
ready to go uh the ordinance is ready to go then they have to file a copy of that with with the clerk uh along with the five names um and and the uh of the people on their committee. And then when they uh circulate the the signature
pages to collect signatures, they have to attach that ordinance um to each to the signature page as well as the names of those five people on the committee, the names and the addresses of them. Does that make sense? All right, next slide. So, here
is what that looks like. Here's a copy of the petition. Uh now in some states uh I think in South Dakota they their law they changed their law so it has to be all one piece of paper and so people would get like huge long pieces of
paper. Yes. In Bloomington can be multiple pieces of paper but they all have to be exactly the same. Um, and so it when they pull them all together, they submit uh the city clerk a ginormous stack of these signature pages. Uh, and they fill in the blanks
that are on this chart here to help them um make them all match and and comply with the process. So you'll see on here um that it says for an initiative they have to get the signature signatures of
at least 10% of the total number of votes cast in the last preceding municipal election. So our city clerk here crunched those numbers just to give you a sense of what we're talking about for numbers. So, in this particular instance, if somebody did this tomorrow,
they would need 2,88 signatures from Bloomington uh residents. All right, any questions? Next slide. So, now here's like the next step. They have to file all those
signature pages at the same time with the with the city clerk. Um and then and then the city clerk um and her staff have 10 days to look through all of them, dduplicate, try and find them on the voter roles, and then they have to
count them, make sure they meet the number that they need, calculate the number, and then meet the number. If she if the clerk determines that it's insufficient, she notifies one member of the at least one member of the committee, and she has their name and address because they had to file that with her. And then they have 30 days to
fix that. Uh and if they can't fix it within 30 days, then she has then the clerk notifies all of the committee members to say you were unable to do that. You have an insufficient petition. They can restart the process or the
council can decide that they just want to put it on the ballot regardless of not having met the sufficiency requirement. Mr. Sure. Well, the question on the the previous one, does it have to be
um I think you said resident of the city or does a does someone who signs a petition have to actually be a registered voter? Registered voter. Registered voter. Okay. Can we look them all up? A question. Yeah. Would it be
useful for the for you to get the telephone number and email address of the people on the committee? Yes, firemen. It it would be um they do they are uh like this last group had put a lot of time and effort into it and so they were periodic they were checking in
with me quite often. Yeah. Um but yeah, that would be that would be a useful requirement as well. I hearing um that I would yeah potential change. Okay. Write that down. Petition chair. What I'm hearing is the
former petition at um where it says address. It would be like telephone number and okay. Yeah. Okay. I have my cell phone. All right. Next.
Oh, we're on 5.7. All right. So, now, um, if it's found to be sufficient by the clerk's office, the clerk transmits notice of this to the council, and we do that in an official way because, as you'll see
here, the counting of days matters. So, the clerk notifies the council at the next time the council's getting together typically and then the council uh they at their next meeting that they can meet. Um they will receive that transmitt from the clerk and then
they'll oftentimes schedule that public hearing all at the at that same meeting. And the public hearing is like an like a public hearing on an ordinance uh in the typical way that you have seen it done before. And then there's a clock that starts. The council must take action
within 65 days of being notified from the clerk. They have to take action on that ordinance. So we we publish notice in the newspaper. It's on our city website, etc. Um and then we hold a public hearing and then the council has to take action within that time period.
If the council the council can adopt that ordinance and then it becomes law um or the council can choose to not adopt it um or adopt uh a amended version of it. If the amended version is
not satisfactory uh to the committee um then it can trigger um the process to have to be put it put it on the ballot. Um, if the committee, if four fifths of the committee, four of the five people on the committee are okay with the amended
ordinance, then you don't have to have an election. Any questions? Think about that four fifths number. Four fifths of the committee. Yeah, the five person committee, right? The five person committee. Did we have to Did we do this? It wasn't exactly this version,
but we were checking with them. Um, feel like we did a version of this when we were working on something previously. We checked with them to make sure that that they were tracking. Remember which one that was? It wasn't the one I was here. Oh, okay.
Okay. So, do not do not express their objection. Okay. Yeah. Okay. So, it's kind of kind of an inverse thing, right? So, what can happen sometimes is is we identify a legal issue and we point it out to them and it starts a conversation
where they're like, "Oh, good point. Can we take care of that?" as opposed to like starting all over again. Um, so sometimes everybody agrees that what we're proposing to do to tweak the language is still going to achieve what they want to achieve. uh it's and it
makes it better and more legal or more defensible or more understandable or what have you. Um so oftentimes uh it's not attorneys drafting these and and we know a little bit more about our code and you know the numbering or the
labeling and whatnot. So we work to try and find something that everybody agrees is trying to achieve the same purpose. Yeah. And so in many ways, excuse me, Mr. Sure. Um so in many ways that four of the five people or all
five people are sort of speaking on behalf of the signators in many ways. Sort of. Yeah. The signators aren't the committee on it. Yeah. Any questions? Now the ballot. A lot of these ballots
are largely the same. The ballot questions, as you may have noticed, we've had some ballot questions on our ballots recently here in Michigan. They have to be yes or no. City ballot questions have to be yes or no. And the majority has to vote
yes. So we are we very carefully construct these questions so that the majority is the yes vote. You know what I mean? like the way that so that the goal of the of the purpose of the initiative or the purpose of the effort that we're
hearing we construct the sentence so that yes means approval right yes means to put into action what they want to happen uh and so we oftentimes will provide those explanatory sentences at the bottom to say a yes vote means a no vote
means you have a question hey John if a person Voting does not vote either way, does it go as a no or is it just it's out of the number of people that vote. So if you chose not to vote, say a
100 people were issued ballots, but only 50 of them voted on that, our total would be taken out of 50. And just a note, that's different than a constitutional question at at the at the state level. We so we also can um just as a side note
um the law authorizes local governments to spend money to educate voters on things like this. And so we always put that the answer to that question on those FAQs for ballot questions. So when people come up and have we have it on
our website and as an explanation so people can understand how the math is being calculated and and we can build out those yes no explanations a little bit more than we are able to do on the actual ballot given the size limitations.
Mr. Chair, yeah a quick question in terms of um the structuring of the of the ballot so that a yes vote means approval or passing. Is is that universal
among cities that that do have initiative as a state law or do you will you see some communities a no would mean I can't imagine what it would be but but the whole idea that you're structuring it as you said around a
yes being approval is that it's always handled. Sure. I don't know the answer to that question. Um I have not done that research. Um, I think we talk about it here as being um, you know, as trying to be
intentional about how we create the incentives and you'll or the questions you'll hear us talk about it at the council meetings because they have to approve the ballot language and explaining to them thought process on it. So, I could report back at the next
meeting. It was more of a curiosity than anything. Yeah, I don't think that that's always the case with the constitutional questions. I'm not sure. When was the last time that an initiative passed and looked? Did you check that? I did not check
that. Um, it's been it's been a while. I don't remember. So, the litigation um chair the litigation in um just a second. Oh, yeah. You're good. The litigation in Jennison, I can't remember if it was one or two. I think it was maybe one which was the solid waste
garbage um litigation. Um one of the issues that was heavily um briefed and argued before the courts was what which what were they what were the petitioners trying to do and there was an argument
that there were there was one argument that they were trying to do initiative and another argument they were trying to do referendum. Um, and another argument I believe that they were trying to amend the charter. Uh, and uh, and so I think that at times people
have tried to use some of these powers um, and different approaches to to doing that. Um, and one of the goals I think of this process is to increase understanding of of what these things are and how and what they're for. Um but
then also when we talk to when I for example present to the um the Bloomington leadership program and programs like that, we always talk about this chapter and explain to them what's happening in this chapter. Um, and we also when we hear about um an effort um
sometimes we'll hear about an effort to to do to try and use some of these powers, we'll reach out to them, especially if they have legal counsel. will reach out to their lawyer and sometimes their lawyer will reach out to us and we can um have a conversation about what do you
what are they trying to achieve and then you know offer feedback um about whether something is you know potentially not constitutional or what have you because it takes a lot of time to collect all these signatures and a lot of effort and energy and money sometimes and so we
want to make sure that they understand what they're doing and if if and If a word needs to be four and they've got five and we know it needs to be different, we want to be able to tell them that so that they don't get frustrated um and we can make that
simple edit early on or at least make them aware of the suggestions they can consider it before they go around and collect signatures. Okay, go ahead, Michael. Yeah, Mr. Chair, um I guess just question kind of on like Mark's thing about like the yes versus no. I
mean, I guess like what was the money resource of like the education that like say for rank choice voting on the last one of like to educate that yes vote actually meant to like repeal you know the thing. So I mean I guess like because I guess
that's where like that yes versus no yeah there was there was right chair and members um the educational efforts that I'm aware of that we've done is it's in the briefing it's in the newspaper
um and and it's on the city website and do you post it in your anywhere else? It's on the sample ballot. Um, one sample ballot. One other point to remember is um when it gets to the
actual voting um the election judges are not allowed to try to help them interpret in any way. Um and so um we we have to be very careful, you know, navigating that. But um yep, we put we put it in the um briefing. Um and given
this was the second goound, our our voters were familiar with it. So Okay, I got a question. Would it be useful based on your comment, would it be useful to make them specify whether they're doing the initiative?
Well, chair members, is it it seems like in the in the trash case, it wasn't obvious, wasn't manifesting. On the actual petition, it does say that says initiative, referendum, recall. Yeah. Um, so there I think that that particular
example of Jennison was complicated. So complicated twice. Um, so um I mean I will offer that I'm always happy to have a conversation with I didn't I didn't notice that it was on the form. So it seems like implicitly
that they're saying this is a an initiative or a referendum. Okay. We're trying to be as intentional as possible. 5.9. Okay. Um 5.9 this is section is pretty
straightforward and saying that none of this stuff in uh is saying you can't also amend the the city charter. Um and um amending the city charter has to be done in accordance with the constitution and state law. Um so there was some question in previous some previous
amendments that were that we suggested a tweet to make uh or challenge the constitutionality of them. Some of you that were on the charter commission might remember that. So um this occasionally comes up. Next slide. All right. Are we ready for
referendum? So, similar to what we've talked about before, um, five Bloomington registered voters can form a committee to repeal an ordinance um, that's on the books, and they have 15 days from the date that the ordinance takes effect to file with a clerk. So,
at the end of almost every ordinance we have, you'll see at the end effective date, and there is language um, about when um, it becomes effective. Sometimes it's on publication, sometimes it's into the future. um etc. So that's
why we always make sure to say that. Chair, do you want to acknowledge our newest arrival? Hey, welcome. Thank you. Sorry for my chariness. For the record, chair, the um uh member McGovern um arrived at
7:37. Right. Why uh is it isn't it possible after 15 days to pursue a referendum or ordinance? You don't uh chair and members, I don't think that
it's impossible. I just think you can't use this vehicle to do it. you have to use you have to you would have to talk to your council member um or um otherwise reach out and express your unhappiness with it. Um I I don't know
exactly why the 15 days is in there other than that um the only thing that comes to my mind most people make decisions and infect decisions and spend money and you know buy land and whatnot based on
um um something being statically in the law. And so we need to provide them with certainty that certain things are going to stick. uh and so the time period is relevant for that reason. Mr. Chair, I had I had the the same kind
of question. 15 days doesn't seem very long in many ways for like word we have to pay attention I guess and um I mean is that something that's in the statute by chance or is that something that is um that if there was
agreement on the charter commission that we would look at that number of days is it part of state statute chair members I don't think it's state statute um because this is a unique to Bloomington law. Um, if you're interested in um, I
didn't do an analysis of other cities like we did the analysis of percentages, you could certainly look and see what sort of percentages are in existence for other referendum cities that have referendum powers. I just don't know that off top of my head, but I could bring that back. Um, I think it'd be interesting to explore that at at some
level. I think that would be maybe too far out. there has to be a limitation of some kind. that I can not only see a situation where 15 days isn't really enough time for people to realize what might have happened and maybe but but more
importantly and I guess it would probably just fall into one of the you know it probably fall into uh initiative but let's say people begin to realize the implication of an ordinance where maybe uh it's full
effect and that takes some time so but I think yeah I would I would be in favor of exploring the number of days learning more about that. So chair members I'll offer that you know there is a public hearing there's notice of a public hearing on the ordinance then the then
there is a public hearing and then the ordinance doesn't take effect until typically publication which is 10 days later. So it's more like 25 or more days after the public hearing that you know so it says 15 days after the it takes
effect but it doesn't take effect until 10 days. It is more than just two weeks. Yeah that's a good point about a month. Excuse me. After 15 years
you initiate a petition to chair and members. Uh I Yeah, you probably could um initiative to do that. Yeah. Yeah.
Or to otherwise change it to be what you wanted. Yeah. So there'd be avenues to be able to share. There would be avenues to be able to navigate. like if said you noticed 30 days 45 days later
chair members the other thing I'll I'll offer is that this this process here is is one vehicle but there's also parliamentary procedure process in our council the council has rules it has the
it it created it for itself the right of reconsideration um so it can reconsider it can um within within certain time periods. It can also reconsider if there's an if there's an error. So if there was a factual error
or a clerical error or something like that, it can reconsider on its own and issued on its own prerogative to do that. Uh and it has um it has done that on a couple of occasions that I can remember. uh it can reconsider on that same meeting which is more typical
parliamentary procedure but we've actually changed it so it can reconsider at the subsequent meeting as well that the immediate meeting. So we have some robust reconsideration um rules on our part for the council
already. All right. So similar to what we discussed that's set up for a referendum. And as um uh our city clerk crunched the numbers and for here for this referendum based on our last election, it would be
3,132 signatures of registered Bloomington voters. Mr. Chair, would the session also be here to add in this petition as well? Probably the email. Uh yeah. Yep. Chair members, I wrote that down for each of the petitions. Yep.
All right. Any questions on this? Um, chair, I was just curious, how do they when if you're going through this process, do they reach out to you as this to find out that figure? Yes. Okay. So, they know going into it like how
many they're trying. And chair members, I'll also offer almost always that I've seen it's they'll do the landscape of a 11 by 17 sheet of paper. That's the that's the the preferred signature collecting format in my experience.
All right, next slide. Sure. Question was on like 510 talked about phone and email for like would it be helpful like in the would that also be helpful to have
their information? That's what we were. Yeah, that's what we were talking right commission members. Any like really any position? All right. So, um, now with regard to the filing, it's somewhat similar. Uh
oh, I just one thing if you go back one there's I think there's an interesting dynamic here is that the initiative threshold is 10%. And the reference threshold is 15. And I as you as you go through here, there's
going to be a couple places where we hit where it's generally harder to have a referendum. There's many different ways than it is to do initiative. Um and the 15% is the first of more than one of those harder. It's like the the the 15 days thing that we talked about is a
harder. So, chair and members, as a um for those of you that remember or maybe weren't here, um I was asked to compile the other communities that have these rights. And so, that's in your packet. And then, um in anticipation of the
question, I crunched the numbers and came up with uh I think it's mode, the most commonly occurring quantities, and crunch those numbers for you. So, when we get to that point, I I can tell you what those are. All right. So with the filing of the petition, the committee must file um signatures with the clerk
within 15 days of its initial request. So it's got 15 days to collect signatures. They file all those signature pages at the same time. And then again, the clerk has those 10 days to determine sufficiency. If it's insufficient, then the committee has another 15 days to get it sufficient and
correct the deficiencies. And if it's still insufficient after um 15 days, uh the clerk notifies each committee member. All right. If it's sufficient I or complete, then the ordinance that
it's seeking to appeal is suspended and the council must reconsider it at its next regular meeting after it provides notice. Remember, it's going to have published notice. So, it's going to publish notice and it's going to reconsider this suspended ordinance. The
council has two choices. It can repeal it or it can reaffirm it. If it reaffirms, then it must order an election um on the ordinance and the ordinance stays suspended until after the election
results are official. If a majority of the people vote against the ordinance then it then that ordinance will will not be effective or in the alternative if the majority vote for keeping the ordinance on the books then the ordinance will be effective
after the election has been canvased. Any questions? Um observation or question. So the observation is that this seems to design to be that people got to be pretty worked up to make this
process work. It's not just like an ordinary thing. People got to be pretty worked up. The other the other question I have is on a referendum petition, what would what would you say the that voting yes means on the
referendition? What is what is the yes on that? Yes. I repeal it or yes I keep it. So uh chair members I would go back to what we typically use is how they have been circulating their petition like what are
they trying to do? you'll see on the petitions as the purpose of what they're trying to do and use that as a guide for what is a yes, what is the goal of the yes and try to stay as intuitive as
possible for the people that are because when we when the voter goes to to vote, we want it to to be like a natural brain connection from the question to the yes to the no and not have to do mental mental gymnastics. ICS. So, we try to
avoid um double negatives. We try to avoid negative words that are especially negative words that are modified with a no or a never or not in front of them. And then we also run these ballot questions through um software that gives
them a grade um grade level. And we try to keep that grade level at 12 uh grade level 12. Um, we sometimes we've had to go higher because the question is complicated, but we try to go with 12 or
lower. Um, as an as of all all of this is in the way of trying to make the question understandable to every voter because the reason I was asking it says if if a majority of registered voters
vote against the order. Yeah, I know. Um, and I guess the the question there is, is there is there a language change there that would help align this with what you're trying to achieve? So, I don't I don't really there is, but chair
members, I don't necessarily disagree that that that I I shouldn't say disagree. Um, I think that's worthy of discussion because if you go to the next slide, um, it says that ballots have to conform to the roles in 5.8 and 5.8 eight of the
charter is the one we've already talked about that says um the majority vote uh if the majority votes yes then it then it then it happens. So you've got a potential for confusion here with the
majority voting against then it will not be effective and so it would be it might be more complicated to explain um to a voter again we would certainly use those a yes means like a yes means you don't want this to happen or a no
means you want this to happen if there's some like dueling intuition there but it's worthy of worthy of more conversation and you all have the language. I I I I'm certainly welcome to take a run it if
you like me to, but I'm also open to any suggestions that that the commission might have. I know why we I know why we did the next If you go to the next section, I know why we did this in 21. I remember why we did it because we were
again this was a part of the consistency discussion and trying to create as much consistency as possible. Um but I too had the same thought chair when I was preparing for this and thought I wonder if that would having you know four years of experience on ballot questions since
then we've had some um I wonder if this is maybe some space for improving the clarity on that. I'll defer to you all if you want. Generally, we've been in favor of clarity. So, I think you know
speaking back to what keeps clear worthwhile. I think that that section there basically five parts of it are just about initiative ballots and parts
of it are about initiative ballots and ref ballots and kind of maybe trying to tease that apart a little bit and have I was looking I was looking ahead to see okay for the recall does the recall get tangled up in this and if necessary seems like it does but trying to trying
to clarify that this language applies to both initiative referendum this applies to initiative this append But our hypothetical 12th grade reader can right speaking against that. It occurs to me that by
definition referendum requires a yes to whatever they're sure by its very nature it's it's trying to do something trying to take something away. So yeah, but but
the proponents of it, they want to say I want to vote against Yeah. It's a referendum. It's undoing, right? Which is probably why it's written the way it is. If a majority vote against a majority of the voters vote
against it, then it's not Yeah. Yeah. It's a good question. Yeah. You showed up at a in a meeting and they said, "Are you you know how are you in favor?" It's basically are you in favor of keeping this ordinance? I think to your point is what they're is what the question is
really. Are you fa in favor of keeping it or not? Well, or are you saying that it's are you in favor of getting rid of it? Are you saying are you in favor of getting rid of it? Right. Yeah. That's that's where it starts. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. So, chair members, we've had the very similar conversations in the legal department trying to honor all of the goals in competing goals here um of clarity and grade level and um and so we
often will end up with these if then statements at the bottom like if you vote yes then you want and if you vote no just to make it as because those sentences tend to score very low grade level. are just very clear. That was in fact
the position go around for franchise voting. If you voted yes, you wanted to get rid of Right. Right. Because the people that were initiating the effort were trying to take trying to
it. That's a great example. Then is the suggestion for 514 then to previous paragraph kind of like I think I'm gonna I'm gonna ask a
question guidance though. Um do do we want as a group to say that we want in the in the referendum that we want yes to be in the referendum mean to get rid of it?
Undo what council did. That's I think basically what you're proposing. Yes, that would do that. Are people okay with that and saying that that's our that's kind of our guiding principle on that. Not seeing anybody object to that. So let's let's
let's say we're going to continue with on continue with yes meaning that it it does what the committee is asking effectively. That's kind of the way I Yes means what the committee is asking. Yeah.
I think the idea of like rationalizing parts of 513 and 508 and teasing that apart, I think that still makes sense to make it be clear. Um, but I think that I think I want to be very specific about that. Okay. All righty.
Clarify. We're creating a new then separate paragraph on 514. I think we're I think we're letting the staff Okay. kind of he's had a part to make it one noted on 520
all ballot 514 says referendum ballots and then 508 says initiative ballots. it'd be possible to change the title to just be form of for each of those since they both address the form of the ballot
itself rather than having those three different titles. Yeah, I'll check on that before we move on to the recall recall. So as a reminder, recall is to remove uh an elected
officials. So again, a five member committee has to be formed. Um and the the official who's trying to recall their term must expire more than 300 days um from when the petition is
filed. The committee files with the clerk. They have to give their name, the name of the elected official they're trying they're seeking to recall, the grounds um for which they want to recall the official, their intent, and then the names and addresses of committee
members. So my suspicion is that you all would like me to add email and telephone or something, which I'll do. Um and then the clerk has five business days to determine compliance with the
requirements. If yes, then they can the certification moves forward and is provided to the committee. If no, then the clerk notifies the committee. They need that certificate for the subsequent stages where they have to attach it to each signature page that they're
circulating. All right. So, it's pretty similar to before, but not quite the same. It's not a petition. It's a certificate. Yeah. Does I mean, it doesn't appear that um Yes. there's any standard or guidelines for grounds. So, grounds
could really be anything that the committee deems as grounds. Correct. Less than however reasonable or unreasonable. Two words or less. So then the question is is there any
reason to have grounds make them specify it? I just like I would say yes because when on a subsequent slide you'll see the okay opportunity to respond. All right. I think that's that's interesting to
note here and it's I don't know if I care about I just want to point it out is that the other the other two it goes to you for this one it goes to you is that is that difference
meaningful is that Mr. chair. Is that normal enough for charters too? But this one goes to the city clerk versus chair members. I don't know the answer to that. Um I will say it didn't spark as being unusual to me. Um and I
only get I only need to approve the language of the ordinance um not the referendum. Yeah. I mean, just I think from working in city government, I don't it didn't strike me as odd just because I assume being like the charter attorney something that has to do with that where
like the city clerk overseas elections which would directly Yeah. And then I mean what would happen if they gave it to me? It's the first thing I would do is call the city clerk. I don't want to get involved with really that would be the first thing I
would do. So yeah. All right. So again, here is the the count. They they include the certificate with the with the petition that they fill out similar to the other ones. Um
and for a citywide official, so the mayor or two citywide council members, you would need 500 5,220 signatures if you did it tomorrow. Um and then you see the various districts for four district
specific council members. So again, for citywide, it's pretty high bar. Well, we have n 90,000 voters. So, yeah. But I mean, it's a lot of signatures to collect.
Yeah. Yeah. As you pointed out, they'd have to take off. Yeah. Yeah. Right. So within 30 days of the clerk getting the certificate, the committee must file
its completed petition and then the clerk has 10 days to determine the sufficiency of their petition. And then um they have 10 more calendar days to collect more signatures if they need to.
Um but they can't change their statement um of you know their grounds. And if they can't get the number of sufficient signatures, then it's done within that time period. If they do, next slide. If they
do get all their signatures, the clerk alert council and at the next regular meeting, um, they transmit that to the council. the clerk transmits it to the council and then the council must provide for a
special recall election. They must do by resolution. They have to take that action. And then that recalled official has 10 days to provide the clerk with a statement that answers those grounds, responds to those grounds that were put forward by the by the committee of
petitioners. All right. 500 words. They get Yeah, they get twice as many words to say why they should stay. And then what happens to that? All right, next slide. Okay, it's like a keep jumping ahead. My
page. Uh, all right. So, um, the clerk publishes notice of the election and con in in that notice includes the statement why they want the recall and then the officials answer, rebuttal, response. Um
and then the the candidate must file um uh the candidates rather the candidates who want the job who want the the seat have to file in accordance with the typical filing rules with the clerk as
if it was a regular election ballot. I know I'm I know that I'm kind of bumping through these but if you have a question interrupt but this next one is where the meat of it is. So this ballot if the council if the council
person member of the council resigns 10 days after they receive the petition there's one process if they if they resign within those 10 days we back up and say if they resign within those
10 days it just proceeds as much as possible like a typical special election to fill the seat. and the clerk will do um her best to pull that off and um do it as much as possible like a typical special
election. If they resign after um then it's a little more complicated because you're already proceeding forward. Um you've got the requirement again of the yes no on there. You've got the names of the candidates. Um, excuse
you got the names, excuse me, restrike what I said about the resigning after. You've got the names of the candidates who want to fill the vacancy as well as the ballot question about the recall. Um, so if that candidate is recalled
um on by function of this ballot or excuse me, if that official is recalled, let me poor job on this one. Sorry. If that that elected official is recalled as a function of the voting on this ballot, then the subsequent candidates
that had filed or replacing the recalled official, the clerk uses rank choice voting to elect that candidate for the remainder of the term that's available. You want me to take another run at that or do people get that? Um, chair, I feel
like this one could use a little Absolutely. That's good. Sorry about that. I didn't do a very good job. No, no, I don't think that that's on you. I think it's worded in a way that's very like confusing unless the officer whose removal is s resigns. Like my brain
Yeah. I got lost there. Yeah. I mean, eventually you'll figure it out if you read it a few times, but like this feels important and maybe there's an opportunity to make the language a little more Yeah. friendly, right? I don't disagree because I had to read it
like 13 times. um chair. So if they I think what this is trying to say is if they resign within 10 days, you're not going to have to do all this recall shuffling on the ballot, right? You're just going to run it like a regular
election. Um but if they don't resign within those 10 days, then then you're you're going to have sort of a two- stepper on that ballot. You're going to have to vote on whether they should be recalled. And then you're also got the rank choice on the replacements. So the
they're gonna have I'm saying that they're probably gonna have some hand counting. Mr. Chair, is if if they choose not to resign, why does the recall election need to be
tied tied to um the replacement candidate? Couldn't it just be treated just as if the person had they chose not to resign? There was a recall election. They lost a recall election, so to speak, and now there'll
be a special election. There's I can think of two reasons. What's that? I can think of two reasons. Okay. Number one is um it doesn't leave you with a long period of time where there's no particular part of town. Number one.
Number two is there's if you're if you were going to have a special election to select someone, you have to pay for two two elections. Yeah. You know, and and it gets tangled up because our and then you have to remember that for council
positions, they they don't if somebody resigns, there's a whole separate process around that. Yeah. That involves the there's an appointment. This doesn't allow for appointment in that this path doesn't allow for appointment. Right. So if
somebody remembers if somebody passes away or they have to move out district the council and and you so the first thing when I find out that something like that the first thing I do is look at the statute there's state law and you do the math on how much time is left on their term. Yeah. Whether you have to have an election or whether you can
appoint. Um and if you can appoint then then you march through that process and if you have to have an election then I call the clerk. Right. So, like looking at it from the standpoint of the petitioners, um if you if you threw in like the
council could appoint someone that that would probably anger people because um the council may not appoint the kind of person that they had hoped to replace this person with. I'm I'm kind of all over, but I I'm kind of saying where that comes from. I still
think it's kind of unfortunately complicated if he didn't resign because if he resigns the statutes that run in elections would
make him resign. No two that um a few years back they passed um legislation that established basically I believe six uniform local election dates. So, um, if you were going to have a special election, it's the law designates which
of the particular dates you can have. So, if you did separate them into two, you'd have that one and then you'd have to wait another two. And and the cost of of running an election is about $85,000 per So, I can certainly see I I think that um in terms of your
first point, Steve, in terms of, you know, uh there's a period of time where there is not representation. Well, that that can happen in other situations and that's unfortunate. But the reality if the people choose to recall that person cost is always a tough one. You kind of
hate to have to think about that, but the reality is that's a lot of money from I don't know where I come up. Thank you. So that makes sense. Out of curiosity, is there a sample ballot or a previous ballot that may have ever been
used for recall election? I'm just curious just to see what that looks like. that one. Um, so I have every ballad ever. Um, I believe for for the most part, um, I could look and find it. I'm just out of curiosity. Yeah, if we have
one. Um, I don't know off the top of my head. I don't know. Not aware of us ever having going back to the going back to the 70s. I hope I don't back now one with rank choice voting on it. Oh, this actually looks rare occurrence. Yeah, I'm not thinking
chair and members. I'm trying to remember another city that had a recall. Sure there has. I'm sure there has been. Yeah, I could do a little research and circulate it for sure. Not too much. Are we ready?
All right, that's it. Hello. Hello. So, I've been keeping notes. Um I have one, two, four, five things to follow up on. Um and that leads into last chapter or next slide leads into the next
um next steps here. We have our annual meeting on May 1st. Um and we do have a couple of topics that um there are four or five sections of the charter
um that you all that have come up through staff or from you all that that you'd like to be adjusted. And so I plan to bring those in May if you want me to. Um and then I could bring these other ones as well for your consideration. Um
the next agenda item unpacks those a bit more and it's pretty short u but I I I happy to provide more details on on ideas are or I can just orally talk um but in order for you all to take
action on specifics we have to start a process and make some decisions um or we can do the annual meeting and then um make decisions at that point. So chair, I think that that would be a good suggest good conversation for the next
agenda item. If you're if you want to move to the next agenda item. Sure. Um I agree with that. One question I had kind of going back to 5.20 20. Is there is there
any is there any interest in people wanting to talk about the adding the appointment path on this or do people want to just stick with the I just wanted to put that out there. And don't don't take that as me pitching you
on a hey, we ought to think about it. I just want to make sure that they make an intentional decision on that. Anybody strongly feel that they want to change it? I think it would be fun to have a recall. Go try and figure out what's
going to happen. It's just Ron. Ron, go find four people. I I that's a really interesting question,00 recommend going to district because it only requires 500.
That's your that's if you want to try it out. That's how you It doesn't seem like there's Okay. Okay. I did want to report the findings of my coalation. So, you've got the got the analytics on each charter city. Um so
the percentages was something that we had talked about um as being something you all were interested in. So in initiative the um thresholds the voting thresholds in the past election um the most common ones are 5 10 15 20 and 25%
and Bloomington has 10% and um the most popular um most commonly occurring is 10%. um of the cities that have um uh this power, 25 cities have the 10%
requirement. The second um most is that 19 cities require 20%. So the majority of the cities require more than us, more than Bloomington. Um but we require the same
as a lot more commonly occurring percentage. Want to move on to the next one? Sure. Yeah. Like for trivia when you're I know, right? Um referendum we require 15%. Um which 31 other charter cities or 30
other charter cities require the same amount. The second most common percentage is 17 cities. Both 17 and 17 require 10 and 20%. So we're right in the middle. Um and
um the most commonly um occurring percentage is what we have in Bloomington. I have a I have a question. Um it's more a question for the for the group here. Um, back back quite a while ago,
um, the we used to charge the princely sum of $2 to file for city council. Okay, that was that was the filing fee for city council. And we got we got people who filed for city council and never ran campaigns. Um, and they
triggered primaries back when we had primaries and and the charter commission got tired of that and we and for the folks who've been around for a while and I and I don't know if you remember if you were here what we thought but we bumped it to $50. I do remember. Yeah.
And the concept was that that no one who was running a real campaign would find $50 to be a problem for doing it. But it kept it kept people from just impulsively going down and filing and and blowing $85,000 on them on a um on a
primary election. Oh, I think that the question that I have listening to what you kind of talked through here is I would be interested in a little bit of history on initiatives and what initiatives have been successful in Bloomington and
whether because if if we whether and to let us think a little bit more about whether our threshold for the number of um signatures is maybe a little bit too low. um if if we're seeing a lot of initiatives that are being created but
not getting brought through, not being voted on by the I think our goal is to have that number be low enough that if the voters really feel like they want to change something, they have the ability to do it. We don't make it unnecessarily hard, but we don't want it to be so low that it's that you don't have to go
build consensus around the idea. Um more disruptive. Yeah. you know, and I my goal is never to like try and cut people off from doing things, but if if if we come back and say, you know, in the past 30 years, we've had seven initiatives
and none of them have passed with this threshold, that I'd least like to have a conversation about whether that signature number is too low. I would suggest we consider it as to whether or not the signature percentage is correct, not too low or too high. Oh,
yeah, I'm okay with that. just because there is an awful lot of work involved with just the process of gathering signatures. So um one point I might make is is it worthy of discussion as to why
um there's a different threshold for initiative versus referendum you know what's the reason for that I I actually have a second question for you asked and the reason is is that the um referendum the have the power to stop an ordinance
from going into effect and I think in my mind I want people to be pretty riled up to to stop something like that that because they basically can go collect signatures and stop an ordinance from going into effect. Um I think there's
other things like recalling people or the next election where you can fix things that are a little bit longer term. So I I'm personally I'm I'm okay with it being much harder to and I think it's much harder to to um have a
referendum than it is to have an initiative. And I think that's on purpose and I personally I like that. Yeah. I think it's worthy of discussion. I don't have an opinion on either way. Yeah. Now is the time to talk about it. It's early to you know. Yeah.
Over recall we require 25% which is the most common percent required. 23 other charter cities require 25%. Um the next highest is 20% and that's 10 10 charter cities. I think the one that were
potentially um different I mean we're where the most commonly occurring percentage but but but more cities require more would be initiative. Um so 25 cities are at 10%.
N 15 cities are at 15 and 19 cities are at 20 and two cities are at 25%. So we're definitely on the lower end although it is a very frequently selected percentage among charts. Yeah.
And is it true that for the vast majority it's relatively equal for both on percentages? So you know initiatives and referendums there large enough disparity between cities where they for example favor a
higher percent referendums as opposed to chair members. I did not do that number crunching but you do have them here for you and I see a lot that are the same and I see some and I see a couple that are different. Some cities are just have a completely
different approach like 50 and 100 you know in Leverne. Um talk about barriers and seven people have one city had like three people needed to do it. Um 500 people in Leverne Lever like
specific numbers I guess. Um, are we the largest of the charter cities or like where do we fall? We are not uh chair members, we are not the largest of the charter cities because Minneapolis, St. Paul, Rochester, and Duth and St. Cloud are charter cities. So, we are not the largest charter city. Um, those are
all technically larger. What's the population of St. Cloud? Oh, I guess population population of St. cloud is less than than Bloomington I believe. Um Okay. It's that whole tri city. Yeah. Tri city. Yeah.
How many charter cities are there? For some reason I have 103 in my head. I think that's good. The rest are statuto. Yeah. I I I have it in another
presentation. I just can't remember. You told us. Yeah, I two months ago. But I guess I guess so, Mr. Chair, I guess really it would be in line like the Rochester Doo that St. cloud area
which they're probably of similarish size to us like are that are Rochester does not have initiative and referendum. Um Rochester is the most similar to us in size and it does not appear it has
recall either. St. Cloud St. Cloud% Anything else on this topic here? All right. We'll go on to agenda item
number two. I will go and grab the other presentation. This is the one you have on your microscopic slides sheet. I wonder I didn't think I just I thought this conversation would be at a pretty high level and we could
talk through it this way. So that's why I didn't um say hand out. No, it's not in your handouts. Um um it's on the back. It's on the back. Grab one. Anybody else need one? I would give you the slides just in case
you want if you want to take notes on the particular slides. Yeah. Yeah, I see what you mean. Yeah. Yeah. Captivated by the fact I get them all in one sheet and I just went for it. All right. So, um Okay. So, for the record
here, um we're on to item 2.2, two um which is discussing the um potential amendments for the charter. So for some of you that haven't been on the charter commission for very long, there's essentially four vehicles um to amend
the charter. It's in state law. Um you can you as the charter commission can propose um uh by you can do it by proposal um or um by ordinance. And I think that the
most I have the actual statute in the packet for you if you want to read it. Um I think that the the easiest way to to sort of think about it at a high level is that it's a conversation sort of a tennis match between the charter commission and the city council. And if
you both agree it's a short it's a short match. And if you disagree then it goes back and forth a couple of times. Um, and so that's a a common way that we have amended the charter. The other way that the charter can be amended is by a
unanimous vote of the city council. And by unanimous, I mean every single member has to be there and has to vote in favor of amending the charter. That's the other vehicle. Then you can have, you know, elections and, you know, all the other methods, petitions and whatnot, but it either flows through the charter
commission or flows through the city council eventually. All right. This is at a super high level. There's two and a half pages of text on it. All right. So, these are the ones that have come up through the staff and the city staff and
the charter commission from our last conversation. Um, at a very high level, I'll just run through them. Um, the readability came from the charter commission discussion at the last meeting. 6.06 and 6.07 we discussed at the last meeting and there have a lot of similarities. And so there was a request
to dduplicate it, dduplicate them, I should say, and simplify them. So I took a run at it a couple times, and you'll see that language. Um the second one is um a modernization of some language.
There's a shift in the in the public administration world to the using the word deputy instead of assistant. And so we have a mention of that in three places in our charter. lots of other places in our roles but a three three places in our charter and so I'll highlight that that is that is more
nothing more than a than that and then I put an asterisk by six and six six and seven because my readability assignment um in my dele in the delegation ID I'm going to tell you about in just a little bit um ad addresses this already so it's
really just a change in 6.03 3 the delegation is is something it's an efficiency effort which I'm interested in your feedback on um related to our systems that we have in place and
the use of outside counsel into that. All right. So here is the text of 6.06 and 6.07 uh long and there is a fair amount of repetition between them. Um and we've done a little bit of tweaking of them
back in 21 and 17 um to address some um delegation and a little bit of cleanup. Um but beyond that um there hasn't been really much work on these two sections.
So I put together a draft of 6.06 and 6.07 on the subsequent slide. I can circulate this PowerPoint for you so you can look at it um more closely but um it's what's happening in both of them is two separate things. One is this
delegation. So essentially what's happening in these statutes or in these sections is um for as a refresher from our our last conversation is it's discussing what has to happen, who has the power and when do
contracts have to go to the city council versus being administratively approved by staff. So, it defaults as a form of of structure and and drawing lines to the uniform contracting law, which is in state law, which says draws a line at
175,000. Those contracts all have to go to the city council for approval. And then there's a delegation that that flows below that for lower dollar amounts. Uh, and within that delegation is a is several documents that the council adopts related to the implementation of our financial
management policies. So the council signs on to the delegations and they're also in our they're also very specifically in our financial management policies. It's a chart. Um and so you'll see here um because titles change over time and
what we're running into is that we've already had to address it once. I don't know why that's stinging, but I'm just going to keep talking. Um, we've already had to address it once in our employment or in our financial management policies to unpack what a department head meant.
Um, and we're running into it again with assistant city manager. And so I'm suggesting more um durable language which is certain city staff and then the council would take action at when it adopts its financial management policies
to effectuate who those certain staff people are. Okay. Okay. And then the same thing in a different version of the challenge down here. We have a delegation in our office um that you all authorized back I
think in 21 that allowed someone else in the city attorney's office to sign um pursuant to a council approved city manager approved delegation. And that delegation currently says if I'm out of the office, me, Melissa, the city attorney, I'm out of the office for
three or more consecutive days, I I have to designate someone to sign for me. And and I and I do that every time I go on vacation and it's more than three days, I send a message to the city manager consistent with the requirements, when I'm coming back, how I'm accessible, etc., etc.
And um and then it also addresses if I am um uh uh unexpectedly gone in scenarios like that. Otherwise, previously contracts just sat there till the city attorney got back because there was no delegation
authority. What we're encountering on a pretty regular basis now is that we work with outside counsel um and I have to sign the document and they have to sign the document and um while it does perform a
function in me reviewing it, I'm um it is slowing things down sometimes because they're they have they have the same client. we have the same client and so it's I'm I'm interested in your feedback and maybe maybe the term is not under
contract but that's the most simplistic language but we are we are in a contractual relationship with them we are their client the city is their client and they have the same duty to the client that I do for the most part
so I'm interested in your feedback on that you're saying the city of Bloomington is the client. Yeah, we have the same client. Yeah. So, if I think about this and I think about my time on the H and we had legal counsel for the HR that
would allow in some circumstances the delegated HR attorney to Yep. Correct. have the authority to sign. Okay. Okay. Well, and to play that out further, um, chair members, in some instances, we
have special counsel assigned to the city. Um, we're hired by the city, and they are working on uh under contract for the HR, the city, the port, and the city on a project. And so what's happening is they have to sign for those
entities and then I have to sign for the city even though they're the attorney working on the deal and we're paying them to work on the deal. So it it's not it's I'm not suggesting it's a burden for me to do it because I'm in a lot of those conversations, but it's a it's slowing things
down when we're otherwise paying them to do the job. And I and I'm guessing they the reason we're contracting with these various attorneys is they are specialists in that area that have expertise that goes
probably beyond the expertise of what we have on staff. Therefore, we have them. So remember that's accurate. Yep. So you'll see a similar approach taken here. delegate to certain um certain staff and then licensed attorneys under
contract. Would it out of curiosity, would it be easier just to say for example approved by the city attorney or a licensed attorney uh designated or retained by the city for example and and designated by the city
attorney. So somebody retained by the city to represent them and then is designated as the signer by you or even a licensed attorney as permitted and approved by the city manager. We could just cover it in the delegation. Yeah, that would work too. Yeah. Um chair
members certainly um looking for direction on this if you're interested in me pursuing it. Um uh the the concern I will um remind the group for those that were not here the last time we made this edit was that
there was a strong preference to have somebody in the city attorney's office signing. So if it wasn't me, they wanted the delegation to be somebody in our city attorney's office. So I want to just because I want to be as transparent as possible. This would be a diff this
would be a change. What if any are the downsides to that as you thought through this downsides dangers, you know, potential for chair members? I I
I have the duty to the client regardless of whether I'm signing the document or not. Um, I'm involved in the conversations. I I guess it's potentially possible that I may I might not know everything that's in the
document. Um, typically though, I will say that when we're working with outside council, those are huge contracts. Dollar value and they're going to the city council. So, they're the likelihood of me not knowing about them or the council not knowing about them is is
mitigated by that. But those would be the things that I would or for example, they may not be as familiar with our our requirements as I am. And so they might not know of something that I know about.
Um every now and then we'll work with outside counsel that doesn't know that we have ironically this signature requirement. And so I'll have to say to them, you need to add my signature onto this document. And then I point them to the charter. And that's the most common thing I point out to outside counsel. Sure.
Go ahead, John. When you say delays, are we talking days, weeks, months? Typically, uh days, chair, remember days, days. But on uh on these documents, you're often times collecting uh nine so or so signatures.
So, it's a lot. And that's just on our side. That doesn't include the other side. So if it's the if it's the port the H in the city which often often it is not always but often on big deals um those are that's nine signatures there and then and then it's the other side
who usually has one or three sometimes these things are pretty timesensitive um as dancing attached by a certain you know whatever it might be I mean sometimes days can be I would say Um,
chair members, the other thing though that it does create is that I don't feel comfortable signing something unless I know what it's going when what unless I know what's going on and what's happening in the document because it because the requirement says that I've reviewed and approved it. So sometimes
it's more than days if I have other things going on and so I have to have reviewed it and I have to have approved it. So, if it's a really big deal, it can take a lot of time for me to and and and it may not take just it may be a couple days delay at the back end of
signing, but it's all of the meetings in the middle that I that I need to attend so that I can know what's going on when it gets to the point where me signing. So, we have multiple attorneys on in these meetings. So kind of my my reaction to this is I
think this this section here around kind of what I call like the review responsibility. Um I'm fairly comfortable with that being delegated. I I think the the execution instruments one I have to think more
about around that which is the one on the previous slide. Um because I think that you know I think you make on the 6.07 07 language. I think you make valid points that um sometimes we have an expert who's better
equipped to do that review than you are and saying that we're going to make you do every review and it to somebody else seems kind of redundant particularly since you can control who does the review. So, you know, allows just gives you the flexibility to delegate that to
somebody from outside if they have that particular expertise. Um, on the on the execution of instruments, I'm just I'm thinking a little bit more about that one. I I need to think a just think a little bit more
about that. stuff. Genie, um, from experience, um, is there a way of working out a tier where at a certain amount, um, you pay or you sign, um, documents
and then it tears down to a contract that doesn't have a lot of face value. That way it it kind of um takes the pressure off of you and and you can delegate it to uh certain people that
you see fit that would work well with that contract. Chair members, we talked about that internally right now um as as an option as well as an approach. And uh there there because I'm signing contracts from
the entire city, I see commonalities that individual attorneys working just with that department don't always know are happening. So there are probably two handfuls of times during a year while where I'll realize that we're contracting with this entity
in this department and this entity in this department and the same entity in another department and and I'm like does do we do we know that we're all hiring tree cutting companies like you know so things like that happen with some frequency or or will or we'll notice
that um and maybe AI could solve this in couple years perhaps, but for right now um I will notice those things and um or else that we have this one performance contract where we're we were signing it with the same person lots of times. Um
and it because I was signing all of them, I I asked the person sending them to me, who is this person? And could we just enter into one contract with this person to do all of these things as opposed to 15 contracts during the year? And um and not to say that I'm like some
brilliant problem solver, but because I was seeing every one of those contracts, I it it was there was some value to that. So I'm I'm a little bit reluctant to do that um because it will it will we'll lose that uniformity and the
actual act of clicking the docuign button does not take very much time at all. So, and then I can also I also know then what's going on and I ask questions like I'll sometimes see a like and I'll ask a question why did you take this particular approach and I I I frankly
find a lot of benefit in in seeing all the contracts and knowing what's going on. So, um so at this point we're not we're not recommending that delegation approach. Maybe in future but not quite yet. Um, so another piece of feedback I have
on this is the second sentence in here where it talks about the contracts that do not require household approval. Um, if we're in kind of the mode of simplifying is to basically in see I'm talking about six.
Yeah, it refers to under um is to say that contracts that don't require that basically telling the city council you make the policy for contracts that don't require council approval and don't specify the city manager and that just completely
delegate the responsibility for that policy to the council because they will end up putting the city manager in there and that but I don't I don't for those here I don't know that you know if if uh if the city council has the authority party to do that. You know, they can it
it makes it simpler to read if you take city man say they they set a policy for those. Yeah. Yeah. Because that's what they're Yeah. Yeah, I think well because I know even just like from
the staff perspective who executed contracts that were around 10510,000 it was much simpler because again you budget for it you have all that stuff goes to the finance and all that the council approves that budget and it kind of comes through. So like
even if it's $105,000 of something having you know at the time it was Jamie but like you know the city manager right you know to be able to you know and just have like this simple review so just go through because again you do the steps to figure out you know where that money should be going because it was like very
laid out in the budget that this contract is for like officials sports. All right. Okay. So, this one's really straightforward. Um, it's just this is our merit system, which we've talked about at our last periodic charter
review. Um, and this just needs a term change here. All right. Um, and then I thought there was one more. Oh, nope. And then anything else you
guys are interested in? I got a list. So, that might be the anything else. But is there anything How would you like me to be to bring these to you for the May 1st meeting? I'm not near you. How would you how
would you would you like me to put all of them, for example, in resolution form for you to take action on and then they would go to council? Um, or would you like me to bring you drafts? Then you would approve the drafts and then we'd have a special meeting thereafter where we put that all into motion or we decide
I could put them all into drafts and you all could make decisions about whether you want to start them or whether you want me to suggest for example this merit board one this one could probably go to the
council. Yeah, you know seven votes that that could be a possibility. Yeah. So let me ask that question. Everybody okay with this coming? That's housekeeping. That one. Yeah, there's your answer on that one. Okay. Um these um for example
um I could prepare a draft and then we could decide how to proceed with them or I could put it into resolution form and we could drop the hammer and move it forward. Um we can take a two-step approach. My gut if you're looking for a reaction is we need a two-step approach.
There's a lot of discussion and questions and we're already going to be having a lot of discussion and questions about these other ones and so they're already going to necessitate a two-step approach. So, let's do it. Might be easier to pack. I think that's that makes sense. Going to meet at least
twice more if everyone's okay with that. And then um the other thing that I would suggest would be helpful is to for me to work with the city clerk and get some election dates um and some things kind
of backed up so we have a bit of a calendar in the event any of these end up taking that direction. Um and um because there are some requirements of I think 70 days and 65 days and
things like that um just so that we don't back ourselves into a into a situation where we have to potentially trigger a special election requirement which I don't think you probably want to do un accidentally right I mean in purpose maybe but not accidentally um so
we can work out those timing we have the council calendar so we could map out a couple of those scenarios for your consideration and that'll help inform the dates when we meet um to continue moving this forward. That generally makes sense. Can you go back to the
merit one for a second? Um given that everything else is going to be a two-step process, are you are you still thinking this one would be uh you would come with a resolution or you going to do them all at the same time?
Um, chair members, um, I want to look and see how we've done it in the past, but I want to say that when we've asked the council to consider an ordinance on something, it's come from the the charter commission to say, "We've looked at this issue and we
recommend that you you take action by ordinance, unanimous adoption of this ordinance to to amend the charter." I want to say that that's how we did it fast. That sounds familiar. My question on this one was this one that's highlighted the assistant city manager. Is that the one we want to change it to
deputy? Deputy and then part of me is like well what happens when deputy is out of favor and is there a way to more generically and you probably tried to think through that already. Um typically I would say chair members typically I would say yes except for what's
happening here. Um what's happening in this section and in this subdivision in particular is that these specific titles are being pulled out of the classified service. Right. So specificity is very important here. Yeah. Um so those are
the only titles that are not a part of the merit system. Got it. That matters. Yeah. Yeah. The other thing that could happen is that when the title is changed in the rest of the documents, um, you
know, because it's in employment rules and all the rest, we could package this change to happen at that same time. That would be another option. You all could say when you take action to do all the cleanup related cleanup, we recommend that you also amend the
charter to Yeah. coincide with all of that. So the council working on that to like change like Kathy is so chair members there there are council discussions um ongoing
um somewhat related to that topic but also there's a compensation plan that's coming out um and some other related employment updates because it just we do annually comp um annual reviews of the documents And this has been something
that's been on the list for a while um to have updated. And um and so here's our sort of typical time. So you you so just to kind of frame it up because I you know I'm
sympathetic to what Mark is suggesting about trying to bundle it together, but seems like there's a little bit of there's a little bit of utility in trying to get this done. Um whereas the other ones there's not quite the pressure to immediately kind of make a
change to that. Um and given and the the cost difference here really is the cost of running an ordinance through the process which is primarily going to be your notice costs, right? Putting in the paper, right? Yeah. Yeah. I think it's
$90 twice typically. Oh, so it's not it's not that much money. So you I guess based on that I' I'd say that what we ought to try to do is to try to send this one through because it's it's not like we're going to debate the language in it. Yeah. Right. Go send that to the
city council and then on the other ones try to word smith that more and the package of that. So question uh chair and members. So on 6.07 and 6.06 you've also got a reference to the assistant city manager in the current language
there. Yeah. So I could change that as well and so that they're all at least consistent so that we don't have an internal inconsistency. Yeah. And because they're all they've all got sort of a version of the same problem. The um
it's down there. There it is. Yeah. Is so is is the 606 and 607 language right now is that causing any practical difficulties members. No. Okay. Not nope. because we have charts that exp okay unpack it. So since it's not since
it's not it doesn't have my opinion is and whatever folks the consensus of the group is but my opinion is on the merit system one there's a there's a practical reason for wanting to do that right now and get that done for the 6.07 and 6.06
6. We would like to do that. It's not the language that's in there right now is not causing a practical difficulty today. And so spending the extra month or two to get language flipped into shape and doing that it's not material in the big picture of things. Does that
seem reasonable? I would tend to agree because I mean it looks like we're removing it anyways. I mean as we debate that language as opposed to like present 606 and 607 one time and then do it again. Yeah. Okay. Later. Mr. Mr. Chair, just one quick
question though is would you have a preference between that and what you brought up as sort of there being a trigger or when the change happens? Um, chair members, I can certainly ask
that question. Um, I mean, I think we'll know more. Um, there the meeting is Monday night. Um, so I think we'll know more then. um and and take
some direction from that discussion. Um just to be clear, if I did an ordinance to to correct or to update to change this term here to deputy, then um I would do that. I would do it all in
one ordinance. So I wouldn't have $90, $90, $90. It would be $90. Um so um there's no my preference would be that this gets done at the same time and then as you said or no not on May
1st it would go to the city council by ordinance but you all could make a recommendation that timing would probably make sense chair members if you all made a recommendation on May 1st then it would go on a May agenda or something But what you're what you're proposing
that that you would you would change the wording. It's just it's a you're you're proposing that we would change the language from a assistant city manager deputy city manager in the three places. Yep. For whatever the number is there and we do that as one thing and then
this kind of rewarding would go as a on a separate path. Are people okay? Yeah. Let's do that then. Okay. See? Okay. Anything else? Anybody other any other ideas they want to toss out on things we want to
propose? Not hearing anything. Okay. Right. So, as a reminder, the May 1st meeting is a the annual meeting. So, we'll we're going to be the minutes from a bunch of past meetings. Um, and just
as a reminder, when you look at those minutes, they've already been through a process back and forth and you've already been provided with a copy of them. So, this is a largely ministerial approval and that they've already been checked a couple times. Um, but just
just there's a bunch of them because we've been having these meetings. Um and then we also do the the other sort of annual review type things um or where we have um uh the report from the past year and you
know things like that. So uh election of officers and so if those things are on your mind um you know you can reach out to me if you're interested in learning more about that. That packet should be coming out it's pretty much put together. It should be coming out um
soon. So, will our pay increase be a part of that? You're also getting smiles with your handshakes. Speaking of speaking of speaking of our pay, either that on the 29th of April or volunteer
rec get whatever the piece of swag is that the city has this year and get fed and talk to people in other commissions. That's you got an email on that. That's I think 4:30 shows us 4:30 to 7 of my calendar. I entered it correctly. There's anything else for
tonight's meeting. Uh if I think there's a motion to adjurnn. Is there a second? Second. Second. Any discussion? All those in favor say I. I. All those opposed. We are Mark Thorson. I don't have time to go.
I got too many.