I can't find a place to park.

I can't remember board, so a heart.

You don't get parking.

Oh, no, no, just push it.

Right.

It is crowded back.

But that's going to be let's uh we'll get rolling here.

Um the first order business.

I'll call the meeting order and ask Jody to do roll call.

Jeffrey?

Here Sylvia, president Michael?

Yes, here.

Rachel, present Malachi.

Here.

Well, me?

Here.

Walt?

Here.

Here.

Brandy?

Here.

Fred.

Here.

John Wade.

Here.

Nancy Zawarski.

There.

And we have a quorum.

All right.

Thank you.

Um one item I want to mention out of the gate.

I apologize that I should have looked at my calendar more closely.

The second Tuesday of March is the annual uh elections and voter meeting for all the townships throughout the state.

I wondered how you're gonna pull that off.

And uh township by default on the head election judge.

So we're gonna try to move things along.

If we're not done by around 5:30, Nancy's gonna take over.

Great.

So you got another one.

Oh, but me or Walt, I thought, well, let's fight with it.

No, I'm just gonna go.

I forgot closest.

So with that in mind, we'll we'll move along here.

And first order of item or of business is uh to welcome John Wade as our newest member.

Uh I'm sure no one knows who he is.

Um I've been around so long, Fred was the city attorney when it's so yeah.

This is probably one of the few groups you've not served on.

So it's an honor to be here at really yes.

I appreciate it.

Welcome.

Thank you.

All right, let's move in to our other business of uh approving the minutes.

Uh you could all have those.

Um I would entertain a motion for approval unless there are changes.

I would make the motion to approval seconds.

Okay.

Sylvia and then Walt.

All right.

Any discussion?

All in favor, then say aye.

Aye.

Opposed.

Motion carries.

Thank you.

This is our open comment period.

This is an opportunity for anyone in the audience who may wish to speak on any item that's not on the agenda.

Faller, anything today?

All right.

All right.

We've seen no one else.

We will close the open comment period.

We have uh no committee reports uh this time.

Um so we'll move to our new business, which is a request to review roles and responsibilities of the mayor uh and our city administrator.

Let me introduce that one.

Uh the mayor, I think Jody, you met with the mayor.

And she provided, I don't have you sent that out yet to I did not send the whole okay.

The the mayor provided uh several sections of the charter that she had some questions about.

Some are just clarifications, some are legitimate questions, and um, you know, she was just kind of looking for some response.

I read through all of those and I asked Jody to go ahead and send it out to everyone.

Um I didn't get it.

No, it hasn't been sent out yet.

And and I think that's okay if depending on what we do here.

Um I will give you here's what I'm gonna suggest is that you know, writing a document by committee is one of the most horrible things you can do.

I've I have found.

So one of the things I would suggest, and it's up for discussion, is that we establish say a three-person work group, take the mayor's comments offline and sift through those and then come back to the full committee with some thoughts, recommendations.

It's still up to the full committee, but um to get through all of those in the context of this meeting would be pretty laborious, I think.

Um let me give you an example.

One of the mayor's questions.

She had probably 20, 25 questions, roughly.

She asked in one section.

Um it made mention of a municipal boundary unit.

And she said, what is that?

Who is that?

Um, so I wasn't sure myself, so I started to dig into that and discovered that the municipal boundary unit is actually an office under the umbrella of the Office of Administrative Hearings in the state.

And they deal predominantly with boundary changes, um, you know, issues related to the boundaries within a city or a or I'm sorry, a city or a county, something of that nature.

Boundaries within the entity, like boards or uh districts within the county.

That's up to those individual bodies to um come up with that process, those rules, who uh adjudicates that and so forth.

And I will agree with the mayor that as I read that paragraph, it's not entirely clear, and I know some of Walt's questions were along that same line, you know, who is this body that uh might uh consider boundary adjustments and so forth.

So I would agree that's uh a paragraph that could maybe use some touching on.

Uh another quick example is somewhere in places in the charter it says that the mayor has the authority to review the books and papers of any department.

I will say that books and papers is maybe an antiquated phrase, and we can probably come up with something better or rephrase that sentence.

So those are just a couple of examples where I would suggest it would be easier to have a small work group sip through those and then bring it back to the the full group, um hopefully at our next meeting.

So let me stop there and see where the group, what the pleasure of the group is.

We can either take this verbatim and start to dig through some of them, but of course you haven't seen all of them.

Um you haven't seen that document yet.

And uh, or do we assign this to a work group to um take it upon that, take that task and come back to fancy?

Well, first question is so you've given us um some examples where clarification or better language might be needed, but the language in the agenda suggests maybe uh different roles in talking about comparing the city in or not, like what's really before us in doing it, and then I have one additional comment.

Sure.

I took these to be one and the same because she did have the mayor has um when I met with her, she had questions about her role and maybe better definition, maybe more clarity, especially as it rates to relates to the role of the administrator.

And as I read through her comments to the charter, they kind of went hand in glove.

She was asking for clarification.

Sorry, you know, who um who can assign work to a city staff person?

The council, the mayor, both you have to go through the city administrator.

It's not necessarily you know crystal clear in the charter.

So I think these are one and the same.

Okay, at least I've not heard anything different.

So there might be a few of those.

Yep, definitely.

So my my additional comment was this in the past year when this has kind of come up, or maybe even before then, and then at our last couple of meetings, there's also kind of been the question out there of how does not just the mayor and the city and man aligned, but the Congress and President.

So I would only recommend if we look at this, not you know, if we're looking at this from the perspective of the language in the charter, uh, to maybe keep in mind also the council president, because you know, like there's no um layout from you who does what when and maybe everybody needs clarification if we can provide some by providing this through review.

So I won't I would suggest just limiting it to the mayor and the city admin.

I think that's fair.

One of her comments was um it's already in the charter that if the mayor is absent from the city that the council president serves as the default mayor, with the exception of having veto authority.

But one of the things that I noticed the charter is kind of silent on is what happens if the mayor is you know out of office, resigns, whatever.

So we have an opening, and there will be a period of time before a special election occurs, and you know, that can be several months.

So do you um not allow that um person filling the spot to still not have veto authority?

I don't know.

Um that that would be the kind of question we might want to further clarify in the charter because the charter really just speaks more so to temporary absences, it doesn't really um talk about uh extended absences, or incapacitation doesn't discuss.

I'm sorry, incapacitation or it doesn't definitely say anything, it just really is is pretty uh nebulous.

Um you know, and in the absence of are we uh are we just limiting ourselves to the exact sentences in the charter?

Are we kind of expanding beyond that saying, well, just because it doesn't specifically say something, let's innovate a bit and put our own thing in, like which which are we doing here?

I you know, I I don't think you have to be constricted by just those areas that the mayor talks about.

Um, if it makes sense to especially to look at other sections as they might relate.

Um so no, I don't think we have to restrict ourselves.

Um we've we've talked about, for example, which department heads report directly to the mayor and what sort of the city administrator and which departments have their own boards of directors and has it been murky, I think to me.

Yes, program the plow if we want to go there.

So I guess you kind of figure out the name of your question of whether or not we should be the larger report or committee.

I think one question I have is what is the ultimate goal that the commission wants to actually do with the information?

Are we merely on a fact-binding endeavor, or are we looking to actually find the information, recommend changes and then submit them to council reverbal?

Well, I think at a high level, we owe the mayor a response that could be in the form of commentary.

We understand this.

Um this is what we came back with, no action needed, or you're right.

Here is some suggested changes that the committee uh or the commission is willing to uh vote on and put forth to the council for you know action.

Um yeah, so I think it could be either for and certainly the body can can decide and and the council itself may ultimately, depending on the changes that are suggested, they may wish to approve those in block or take them one by one.

Um their choice.

And I suppose that depends on you know some are going to be a bit more require a bit more thoughts than others.

For example, one of her questions is that the mayor is defined as the leader of the police department.

The police department, however, um submits their budget just like any other department budget to the city administrator, and the council votes on that.

She is suggesting that she the mayor not have approval of the police department budget, but have an opportunity for input.

Okay.

Um the council might agree with that, so yeah, you know, maybe we would the mayor shall have the authority to provide input on the police department budget.

Uh or they might say, nope, goes through the city administrator just like everybody else.

That's their call.

So that would be an example, I think, where we might have a recommendation, or we might come back and say we acknowledge this as a valid question, but we take no position.

That's a legitimate response from the commission.

I think I mean my two kind of thing with that thing is if we're doing the fact-binding aspect component, then a committee makes sense to kind of go out and do the light work for people who have the time to do so, but that we are recommending changes, that should be a large group of judges for Dr.

Why?

Oh, absolutely.

Whatever the work group does, regardless of the item, it comes back to the full correct.

Um yeah, it's not the work group that makes the decision.

Well, Randy, I'm I'll I'll be honest with you, I'm disappointed that um last fall somebody sent us something to look at.

And as we sit here six months later, we don't know what we're talking about.

You you apparently seen it.

Now you're talking you're suggesting we hand off the problem to a smaller group of us.

I don't even know whether based on a couple of examples you've given, whether we can give the mayor any particular input.

From what I understand, a couple of things are legal questions, which he should be asking Mr.

Spendler Craig about.

If she if she wants to suggest that something is an issue because she has been advised that somehow that is an issue, that's one thing.

But if she wants us to interpret the charter, that's not our rule at all.

I guess what I would like to see is I'd like to see what she sent us.

I'd like to be able to see whether or not it falls in the category think we ought to be looking at, or telling her to go ask somebody else because we're not the people who make that decision at this point.

And I think that's fair.

I I saw the document maybe month and a half ago.

I saw it when the agenda came out, and I thought I must be missing something because it isn't there.

No, it's it came out relatively recent.

Are the questions just from her or from other members on the committee as well?

These were all comments from the mayor.

Just from her directory.

I didn't have to look at them, but I'm just yeah, we're not the people who make the decide what the charter means.

Right.

Interpretation, especially if there are legal issues, that's most likely not us.

Um if it's a clarification of language or something that makes the charter better, you know, we can certainly even there, we can't make change.

The council has to approve it.

Um, and and one could argue that even when we finish our discussion, there should probably be an opportunity for the city administrator and/or council president to chime in.

Um, what do you think of these as it relates to your roles?

Um, so it you know it gets it's a little messy, I suppose.

Yes, Sylvia.

And I have to concur with Brad, because first thing that you asked is number one question.

I immediately look at Michael, because you know, mayor with all those questions, you look it up, what it means.

I would just go to the city attorney and I would ask those questions.

If you don't understand what it means in the charter, I would go to Michael and ask those questions.

I think creating the work group to go and look for legal terms of the charter.

Sure, we can do, but it just feels counterproductive.

Uh alternatively, we understand that she could have done that.

She could have gone to the city attorney.

But she wasn't gonna give us a job, but didn't do that for whatever reason, to the best of our knowledge, or wasn't satisfied with the answer.

I have no idea.

That's really not, I'm not looking at him for the answer.

I'm simply saying that she's obviously wants this body to do that.

And I would say I have not seen this document, but you would say two, three, five, and seven.

We discussed with the city attorney, this is the we can do that.

So we she wants to charge it.

Well, I'm not saying what I mean, areas that we would not go to the city attorney.

Not the same thing.

I was gonna look down at you, and I thought, no, I'm not gonna look down at him because she could have looked down at him.

And she did it.

So if we're gonna do that, we could do that, and to Fred's point, we we would probably ask the number of those questions to the city attorney and say, but I don't know the questions.

If the questions are just to clarify what those legal terms means, I would go to City and Herd.

But so far, we only got two.

Some of these, I think.

Let me give you another example of some one that I think is pretty straightforward.

The current charter uh stipulates that there is one regular meeting of the common council held on the first Monday of each calendar month.

And there's some language in there about holidays.

They meet the first and third.

So she's basically asking, should that say that first and third, or some language that says that two meetings a month or whatever.

That's an example of something that she said, maybe we need to uh a minimum of one per month, and then what time that their calendar.

So, how many questions are there?

When I've always I always thought that the second meeting of the month was a continuation of the first meeting of the month theoretically, but maybe I'm wrong, Michael.

Is that he said separate meetings?

They're separate meetings, they are okay.

For purposes of reconsideration, so they're considered me separate meetings.

I mean, well, I mean, uh, there's there's uh there's a situation in Roberts rules where to get seek reconsideration, you have to have to do it at the same meeting or the next meeting or whatever.

It's I guess my maybe I'm remembering something from 40 years ago that ain't right, but uh I seem to think we used to treat the second meeting of the month as a continuation of that first meeting that was held, but uh we we do not there's okay so you got to post things in advice.

Um, two things.

One is um, given this discussion, I I guess I'd suggest this could be sent to everybody, but still appoint maybe a three-person panel to look at it and say, okay, these things maybe we can clarify the language without necessarily doing it then, and then maybe these questions are really seriously for the city attorney.

I second comment is and I hate to muddy the water, but um, we saw questions like this come up in other things.

Um particularly out the also with respect to the library board and the park direct board, and who you know does the who does the director report to and all this stuff too.

And I thought Rochester was a city big enough that is our city administrating acting in the capacity of city manager, and if we change the position of city manager, it might clarify a lot of things as to these lines of responsibility without necessarily necessitating an increase of pay or anything.

I mean, I don't know.

I just think that's also been another thing that's kind of come up with these top positions as who's doing what, who's responsible for what?

So anyway, thank you.

Yes, I and that makes sense.

Uh, let me give you an example, and I counted, there are about 20 comments that she had.

Let me give you an example of one to Sylvia's comment about where we might need direction from the city attorney.

She is asked in the in the um current charter says by the third day after the passage of a resolution, it shall be transmitted to the city clerk to the mayor for approval.

Why three?

Is that a statutory thing?

I don't know.

Similarly, within five days of receipt from the city clerk, the mayor has to approve or veto.

Where does five come from?

I don't know.

I don't know if that was an arbitrary number that was derived many, many years ago, or if there is some statutory definition.

So that would be an example, I think, for Sylvia that I would turn to Michael and say, help us out here.

Why is it three and not four?

So forth.

And that would any of those would probably take a little bit of time to dig out.

Um would it be a good recommendation if we spent time today to just categorize the comment?

Not interpret, not provide input, but simply say is this for interpretation by the attorney's office, or is it something that we can actually do something about?

There's only 20.

I don't think that would take a long time.

But then we can actually figure out if we need to set anything up.

Oh, we're sorry, would that make more sense if all of us have seen a document?

I haven't seen the document.

That's the same.

That's why I'm saying because I feel like it would be hard to kind of read them out in real time and then try to categorize it because might be something where we all might benefit from seeing the document, being able to take a little bit of time to read it, and then that might make categorization go a little bit faster because then I'm not trying to read the categorize it all at the same time.

Yeah, and I agree with you that you know, as you read through these, you have to read the current language and then read her comments, and then sometimes you need to read the read and post sentence and put it in context.

So I would agree with you that it would be most um uh beneficial if everyone could see it, read it, and then I did the mayor get any indication of like when how fast she's expecting this to happen, or is it more she's leaving office and now she has a disquestion?

I've not heard any uh any sort of time constraint from from the mayor.

And I guess my only my only point you can ask question is to kind of say we have a little bit of we potentially have some time to actually look over this document, absorb it and then kind of make we don't have to decide right now what we necessarily want to do with this, right?

You know, to Fred's point though, I don't want to belabor this.

It's been on our agenda for months.

And uh, you know, the this last month and a half now where I actually saw her companies and had a chance to read through them.

Um I originally thought, well, she just got a couple of comments, let's get it done.

And then as I read through them, and then I thought, oh, you know, she got a point on this, but then there's that, and you know, I could see where there would be some discussion involved.

Um I wouldn't want to yield all of our uh because I'm under I'm learning uh our authority, but seem one way to do this, or make me think about categorizing it is why wouldn't we send a document?

And just to help me understand it and please explain it to me.

Why wouldn't I send a document like that to the city attorney and say review these points?

And what because there's probably several that he could spend a few his time valuable, um, figuring out why it's three days or five days or this or that, and without this that body or that work group, if that's the case to see what we're dealing with there.

How many are we actually how many can be answered because the city attorney can say no?

That's why that is or you know, gonna kind of clear those out, and then say these are the ones because the city attorney could also advise, I would think, but I don't always get out you serve anybody's authority, but it would seem that that would give a clearer picture of what you actually what we have to deal with versus kind of the the questions that are important to clarification.

That that's certainly uh a path we could do.

So uh it would be easy if Michael doesn't already have it to send it to Michael and he could add his comment as a you know, um you know, this is based on Minnesota statute about or comment, but commission up to the commission or you know, and could respond.

It would seem to be a way to get that down into some area of items that need to be addressed.

And uh, you know, Michael, I'll look for your input because if we did that, it would be great if you looked at the document and had a chance to add your comments as appropriate, and then send it out to the group.

I don't so that you would have the benefit of the city attorney's comments uh if there are any.

Maybe we all read it.

I'd like to read it.

I'm intrigued now.

Can I make a motion to table the production?

I mean that we will send the documents to the attorney's office.

I will feed back before our next meeting.

We can do that.

So there's a motion to the table, is there a second?

Second.

All right.

So the motion is to table this item, send the document to the city attorney and allow him to provide his commentary.

And then once he's completed his work, send that document out to the entire body.

Correct.

Rachel, excuse me.

Do we want to table this discussion or we want to continue it to the date certain of our next meeting?

Because I don't want to table it that just sits in other states.

Eventually bring it bring it back, or you know, remove it from the table.

If you continue it to a date and time, you can do that too.

If we you can take that um risk, I suppose, of just saying continue it until the next meeting.

Um, which would be is that gonna be um and you know the worst that would happen is city attorney's not ready not uh and we haven't sent the document out.

Um I guarantee it doesn't take you long to read through it.

I did it on a plane right, so um would you rather continue it to a specific date, meaning the next meeting or table it?

Because there's a lot of people interested in it, so someone's gonna pick it up off the table at some point.

So yeah.

I'm willing to stay and we want to vote against it.

I'll leave it a table for now.

I think there's a lot of flexibility about it.

I appreciate the comments, but yeah, we just bring it back.

I I agree that it's you know has enough time sensitivity that even if we do table it, I'm sure somebody will vote to remote from the table at the next meeting.

Can I just get a clarification of the question?

So right now we are saying it to the city attorney first, his comments, and then once the city attorney is his comments where necessary or required, then it comes to us, not all the simultaneously, and then having the city attorney comment as necessary.

Um say that again.

Basically, the chip right now we're voting to just send it to the city attorney, and then the city attorney send it on to us, or all of us, and including the city attorney also have been comment.

But that's that's your your pleasure.

I would prefer to wait and see the city attorney's comments.

I mean, we would send it out as it is today, not a problem.

Um, or wait for the city attorney.

I that would matter to me.

But my motion I would stand that the first property attorney office, so that makes less information for us to grapple with.

Okay.

Rachel.

My concern proceedly is can we direct staff to do stuff with the table item?

Or do we need to continue it to a date certain so that we can hopefully have some time in your scan.

Michael, yeah.

I appreciate the technicality.

It is fair to say that the table would typically not include a direction to staff.

Um that said, um, if you table it, I would understand your intention follow it through in that manner.

Have you seen the document page?

Is the mayor's comment?

I have, um, but not I haven't gone through the entire document.

Okay.

I've just seen some of the some of the comments to get a flavor of it.

Um if I may, um, just a number of your comments kind of called in the question, like what has led up to this.

Okay, this isn't a new topic.

Um, it's not a new topic to me either.

Um, and it is fair to say that some of the comments are um procedural, um factual, why the number three, why the number five, and obviously some of them are um highly substantive.

You've seen some of those questions previously, and you also understand that a number of those questions get into the gray areas of the charter um for good or for bad, um, where um sometimes it it's hard to give a clear legal answer as to who exactly has the authority to do this particular task, right?

So um I think I understand the direction from the body, and I think all of you understand that some of those gray areas um will just continue to be uh tricky to grapple with.

Of course, that may present back to the body the question of do you um you make it more prescriptive?

Do you build out charter language that um gets more explicit uh direction?

So um all of that said, um, I would sort through the through the managed comments and do my best to provide meaningful input.

There's a plan of parliamentary procedure.

I I do like the idea of the continuance because it seems to be certain.

You could get the stuff, you know, within at the next meeting.

That's that the difference help me with the difference between tabling this, which I understand, which is more vague, actually than a continuance.

That's like this is what we would like to have happen between now and the next meeting.

Just so I'm yeah, because that's really what we want to have happen.

We want by the next meeting, seems fair, if that's appropriate, that we would get that information back, and that that would be that's like we are continuing it to do that.

So I'm just just you know really just trying to understand.

Well, I was gonna follow up with a question of Michael.

I mean, you have a flavor for some of the mayor's comments.

Do you think it would be particularly arduous to be able to come back in May?

I mean if you thought it's gonna take some time, and so I would rather you just table it.

Or yeah, I can I can come back with something.

I would do my best for May.

Okay.

And again, uh as I read through these, I I don't know that you're gonna see that some of these are really just one of the misspelling.

Okay.

That's one of the point.

So those are like snap dogs.

Yes, and if I may, just that that is a fair point that part of the reason that the mayor ended up having a sit down with um with Jody was because some of these were assuring we were working off of the same updated document, and that the mayor had a complete version of the charter.

Um, so just to provide a little bit of that additional context, there is in some respects that level of detailed arcane, probably some things that we can correct administratively clerically without action by this body.

That makes sense.

Well, the question.

I'm not a lawyer and don't pretend to be, but um it's my understanding there is at least one pending legal action with the city, and I haven't seen the document, but if from your examples, some of those sound familiar with some of the previous city issues.

So I would just ask whatever commentary you're gonna provide if you feel that their pieces of this that should be postponed to a future time, please.

That would be helpful to know.

I I appreciate that sensitivity to my knowledge.

None of the suggestions or topics um wander into that area, but I I do appreciate the sensitivity.

I can I could think of some issues that uh that you could have a best practice, you could have an opinion by League of Minnesota cities or whoever our mentor best practice uh you know I it perked my interest thinking about uh having the police report directly to the mayor and watching other cities grapple with who gives them work direction, what's a reasonable detainer, what how do we deal with the ice, how do we how do we deal with the people in uh physical crisis?

Uh it'd be nice if that was not a one-on-one department head and mayor.

I think the the community would be stronger if that was a little more participatory, but I don't really have an opinion much further than that.

I don't actually know.

So if in the course of your review, Michael, if if you have ideas of how to address an issue, how to more thoughtfully, you know.

Uh you know, we've been back and forth on uh a couple departments having their own board of directors.

Uh I'm not sure we're ready to deal with it.

Yeah.

I I wanted to respond to one of Brett's earlier questions.

That our job is not necessarily to interpret, it's not our in our bailiwick.

Let me give you an example.

One of the mayor's comments, and this is under the section related to city administrator.

I'll just read a verbatim and then her comment verbatim.

Uh the city administrators will serve in an advisory and consulting capacity as special assistant to the mayor and council.

City administrators shall perform such special assignments of work as may be given by the mayor and council or any standing committee of the council.

That's the charter.

Her comments.

How does this get clarified?

The mayor needs clarity that she is allowed these duties, but it's not being interpreted this way.

It's a special assignment of work.

The mayor is being told she cannot suggest or do things.

Reading a verbatim.

That might be in, I'm sorry.

Can you can you say one more time?

Who's not allowed to do those things?

He's saying that that was her comment.

The mayor is being told she cannot suggest or do things.

So there's a gap in interpretation of the language.

Now our body might come back and say, you know, it says what it says, you know.

I'm not sure if you're interpreting it in a different manner.

That you know, that's not for us to necessarily legislate that.

So I don't again, when we get to that point, I don't know where this body would come down.

Whether we would say it says what it says, we're not going to change it, or right.

Here's where it could perhaps be clarified.

I think we had this comes back to the same conversation we had last time that you know.

The city administrator is not performing, that's for the city council to deal with the performance of city administrator.

I think this is literally had this conversation last time.

The mayor, I mean they're not happy with the city administrator, that's hiring and firing processes.

I don't think that's anything to do with the charter.

Um I believe that's true in terms of you know, hiring fire and so forth.

But that's not charter to tell that the city administrators not performing his or her duties, and there should be an issue of performance.

I mean the city administrators uh is really basically responds to what the council tells him or her under the city administrator and city attorney are the only two offices under the charter that uh have no terms of that they can be removed for any time or any reason.

So they serve at the pleasure of the council.

The city administrator doesn't under the present setup serve at the pleasure of the mayor.

You mentioned uh the other day or Nancy that uh a city manager Rochester has a city administrator in lieu of a city manager because a city manager form of government is much different.

So everybody has to kind of understand that that uh if we talk about creating the city manager, that would be a major change in the way our government is structured.

That may be another argument.

You ought to have somebody who's responsible as an executive.

And instead of well, anyway.

So I mean, so when we get into these discussions, sometimes people forget that city managers and city administrators aren't the same person, things like that.

One thing too, and I don't know if this helps or not, but I read a couple of sentences about the city administrator.

Um there's only about two more sentences, and that comprises the entirety of the description of city administrator in the entire charter.

You know, the other sentences talk about city administrators shall look at data, establish suggest policies, um those kinds of things.

So it this is not particularly verbose, and that could be another discussion.

You know, how deep do you want to go?

Uh, you know, and it's problematic if you want to start getting into listing bullet points of specific duties of any individual.

I'm not sure we want to go there, but if you keep it at a somewhat very high level, then you maybe introduce some opportunity for ambiguity and you know, disagreement.

That's where job descriptions come in.

So another step would be a parallel language that the job description supports whatever might happen to uh charge.

So it's it can get really deep.

But as a suggestion, I think to have our city attorney look at it, it might be a really good first step to eliminate whatever somebody was suggesting, waiting through all this information.

And the city, I should say the city administrator category in the charter that was last addressed in 1997.

The council apparently made some changes.

I don't know what the changes were, but that's uh that's the length of time it's been since this was last reviewed 20 years ago.

Yeah, Mr.

Chair, if I if I could just a couple of things.

In addition to that um very high-level generic charter language, there is a separate ordinance that fleshes out in a little bit more detail the city administrators' responsibilities.

Um, there is also, of course, um a lengthy um job description that was last updated um and that ended um at the time of the last fire, which was five, five and a half, six years ago.

Now that's just a little bit of context.

Um the other piece to explain some of the some of the nuances of this mayor conversation.

Um the notion of that the city administrator or the charter is is somehow preventing certain activities or or actions.

Um if anybody was watching the um the last council meeting, not the study session, but a week ago, we really dug into some of this exact topic.

Um, and it's a maybe a particularly interesting topic because it really is sort of the dance of how does the council involve the mayor in the council meeting process.

You may notice that the charter doesn't say anything about the mayor's direct involvement in the in the council meeting process, and over time.

Um the council has has developed that dance to sort of to the satisfaction, I think, of the council and to the mayor to have some level of involvement, engagement, um, but it's defined through their council rules and code of conduct that has evolved over the years.

And my point in part is that that's an example where um the council really gets to make the decision as to how the mayor is involved in the council meeting process, right?

Um and they may they may make decisions about that that may not satisfy the current mayor at the time.

Um and may or may not reflect on what the charter responsibility, that kind of language of being able to suggest things to the city council, for example, right?

Like we could interpret that a variety of ways.

There's multiple ways that the mayor can bring business to the attention of the city council.

It doesn't necessarily mean that the mayor gets to place something on the agenda at the particular part of the agenda that she thinks it should go on, right?

Um, so there's just a fair amount of nuance to it.

There was some discussion again exactly on this on this point in a in a recent meeting.

Um, and the body needed to kind of sort through that.

And I think they did so and they heard the mayor's perspective, and they tried to they tried to accommodate it.

Maybe the last piece, and I think all of you know this, and we've talked about it a little bit previously, is just the idea that of course the charter deals with structure of government and positions, it doesn't deal with people, right?

And you're you've talked about and you're kind of trying to figure out how to consider the current mayor's perspective on things, but at the end of the day, you're really making decisions that are about the mayor's position long term relative to to the whole eye.

So I'm sure you'll figure out the right way to balance the current mayor's perspective with that long-term long-term vision that the Charter Commission is about.

You know, I and I think those are excellent points.

I think context is a major uh word here.

You know, we may have what other ordinances and or job descriptions that define some of the more discrete responsibilities and so forth.

Maybe the charter by design is meant to be high level and you know if if read in in isolation, someone would say, well, that's that's pretty vague.

Um, but you gotta look in context with these other things, uh other documents and and see how they blend together.

Yes, quite I believe this government's directory way for the motion of currently on the table.

I've forgotten so that we so right now the motion is to table, and we have a second uh this item.

Um I will make a second amend the motion.

Right and continue for the next meeting.

I think that requires a second second person.

Right on second that okay.

So with the same idea that uh the document we've sent forward to the city attorney once he provides whatever comments he wishes to, then that document gets distributed to the entire body, correct?

Michael.

If I might amend my answer to you before, I appreciate you um giving consideration.

Um I just um don't want to overpromise and a significant trial in April.

Um, so I would appreciate going out to meetings if that's possible.

That would normally be our July meeting, which historically gets canceled.

We don't have to cancel it, but it's up to the it's up to the body.

Well, yeah, uh I am I'm certainly not going to make you meet in July.

So I I could I can do my best to um pull together as as much as I can for the main meeting.

I think yeah, okay.

So it still stands continued to the main meeting, and we make our best attempt to kind of keep this moving forward.

Let's put there another slide event that amendment.

I think of course thank you.

All right.

Final comments on that, otherwise I'll call the question.

All in favor then say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed?

That motion carries will have a good meeting in May.

Yeah.

So that takes us to one unfinished deferred business item, um, which relates to ward boundary.

This is something that Walt had introduced.

And when Jody and I last spoke, I wasn't sure if some of the questions should go to Michael first or uh at any rate, I wasn't under under the impression that we were ready to talk about it today, but I could be wrong.

I thought we asked the city attorney to weigh in on that before we it's my right.

Help me out here.

I I don't recall it because I went back and looked at the minutes.

That's another kind of three.

Go ahead.

Yes, uh, you you did give some direction, but there's a yes, there's a reason Fred's voice kind of trailed off there a little bit was it the exact direction, uh I'll I'll acknowledge was I think pretty broad.

Um IDO was not working at your November meeting, so we didn't have the advantage of going back and reviewing the discussion at that time.

Um but all of that said, um, I think at a high level, um we're prepared for at least some discussion, and uh really be looking to Walt to some extent to um you know we spent a lot of time on this topic um to it to inform this discussion and and get some better sense from the body which parts of this discussion you you want me to dig into further or you want to explore further.

So I'll I'll read from the minute item from the November meeting that the city attorney was asked to review the charter compliance with Minnesota Statute 204B dot 135 as it relates to commission f as it relates to the the uh question regarding ward boundaries.

So I think that was the specific question uh compliance as opposed to the Minnesota statute that's uh enumerated there in terms of uh boundaries.

That's all I know.

What's behind that?

I just understand what is the we've in over the past few years, we've taken a close look at the history of transitioning to a city of the first class and how it relates to this section of the charter, but we've never really legally examined the current language to understand if it's workable, if it's um or if it's archaic.

And that's really my fundamental question.

There was a secondary question that Rachel had raised, and but the number one focus is the current language relevant and workable.

Can you speak to that to any degree?

Yes, I um I think so.

Um so there are numerous pieces um to this conversation, and and again, well, you did a very nice job of including in your materials the reference to those those various um various resources, various authorities, um, but it may be helpful to um to take a step back and just understand the timelines of of uh acknowledging that the city went through this experience already once, as the city of the first class, right?

We were we were city of the first class well before we went through this process in 2000-2001, um 2002, the last time we um went through the redistricting process.

Um the short answer to your question is that through that process and through my reading, there's no obvious conflicts between the existing charter language and the state statute that is referenced um in the charter and the various materials that that you included.

You may have noticed that there are numerous convoluted timelines that are that are referenced um in the in the statute, um, but through those various timelines that all relate to numerous different triggering events leading up to a filing period, leading up to a primary, leading up to a general election, there's no obvious conflicts or points of the charter language that that are in conflict.

Um it may be helpful for you to review some of the materials or some of the process that the city went through in 2020, 2021, 2022, um, which really does kind of set out the timeline, um, the priorities that the council uh reviewed the sort of day-to-day logistics of of what it what that process looked like.

I have a mix of those materials that we can pull up and review together, or again your materials did did reference all of those items.

Um I know there were a few other specific questions that you asked in your materials, and I can either talk more generally about some of this background of the redistricting process, or can focus on your specific other questions.

Well, a follow-up question first.

So I have no argument that we've been through the redistricting process.

Um, and I'm very familiar with what happened after the 2020 census and the various documents that were both from city and county.

Um as I understand it, the charter language really defines a backstop.

So if the various bodies don't meet their deadlines, then it reverts to this charter structure.

And um there is public review required, but the timeline that's outlined in the charter is minuscule.

So that's one question in my mind.

Um then as I understand the language, it says that it's possible that the final decision could come down to two individuals, which I find disturbing.

So we haven't visited that backdrop yet, but do you feel that those are relevant issues that should be examined?

Maybe yes, maybe no.

Okay.

So the I think part of what you're reflecting on is that um, yes, the charter doesn't include the extensive timelines that the that the statute does, and we have this dilemma in some other places where generally we don't want to put in specific statutorily referenced timelines into the charter because the state statute could change, it could adjust those timelines.

And we have this dilemma in some other places where generally we don't want to put in specific statutorily referenced timelines into the charter because the state statute could change, it could adjust those timelines.

Um so we generally don't want to go into that level of detail.

Um there is that there is a principle that of course the charter has to be consistent with state statute.

Um so there's not really any doubt that the timelines that would guide the charter process would include reference to to the statutory framework.

Um so that is that is one piece of the second item.

Uh the two individuals could be the final decision makers.

Yes, with um with the caveat of what is what is final, probably at the point that um so what triggers um what Walt is referencing is that the city council has somehow fallen down, not been able to execute, not approved preliminary um boundaries, then this um this boundary commission of citizens of the city council president, the mayor, and the charter commission chair.

Correct.

Those three majority of those three can carry the day.

Um, but it's fair to say that of course the courts are in the background um at that at that point in conversation.

But it does explicitly say if one of those three is unavailable, the other two can decide.

Yeah, it does not say that.

I think you gotta assume it does.

I mean, it would be otherwise you'd have a process where it could be defeated by somebody's absence.

I don't think that's something that would be legally well never mind.

But I I understand what you're saying, but I don't think that's the way it would work.

Okay.

I don't know.

Has it ever happened that we've needed to call that boundary commission?

Not in my recollection.

Not since 2020.

Um, not to my knowledge.

Uh that's uh that has never happened.

Um I think if I could paraphrase Rachel's comment just to add on, but according to my notes, the thing I think Rachel was asking something very similar.

Like, weren't there some principles or you know, other actions that previous councils had adopted that uh you know would guide this sort of discussion?

I guess the the point that was made was that we have this policy, and what is that in relation to the strength compared to a resolution versus ordinance versus charter language versus whatever?

Just a policy seems facially weaker than having something that is a resolution and ordinance part in the charter.

This was an area, by the way, it was another one of the mayor's comments that is in need of some language clarification because it makes reference to the consolidated planning department, which doesn't exist any longer.

So at a minimum, that language needs to be touched on.

Well, my original request had been that we seek the legal input in order to determine if the body wished to discuss it further.

Now, at our last meeting, you know, we we had some conversation about this, and there seemed to be a fair amount of interest in um visiting it in some way.

So I'm not asking to resolve it today, but um would it be reasonable for us to plan that we'll bring it back at a future meeting uh when whenever it fits into the agenda, and then you could comment further as you choose at that point.

I will move that we continue this discussion to the next regular meeting of the Charter Commission, and then it allow perhaps if we can adopt that um Mr.

Staver to make his other appointment tonight if we could adjourn.

Don't don't worry about me.

I do because there'll be you're running the township out there.

Yeah, well, I have good assistance.

Um I suppose the good news is these are really the only two items of business before the body, so there should be no reason that we can't take up both items and you know move the move the ball down the road a little bit.

Um if not conclude something.

So I was second the motion.

All right.

I moved to amend the motion to move it to September to give Mr.

Smailer Craig time to set the mayor's thing over your litigation and then give this the due credit and time that it requires.

Well, my what my intent was that we would continue the discussion at a later time.

Not that we would uh not have any discussions.

No, no, I just don't you specifically said the next meeting.

Yeah, we give him two.

Yeah, but yeah.

So are you okay with the September suggestions?

That's fine.

Yeah.

And whoever was the second, are they still okay with that?

Okay.

So we would continue this item to our meeting in September.

All right, yeah.

Okay.

All right.

And just further discussion on that motion.

All in favor, then say aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Any opposed?

Motion carries.

Thank you.

And and the one lingering question I'd ask is I mean, I could bring a specific proposal in September for consideration.

My sense is that would be pretty mature.

Um, so if if anyone feels differently, I'm happy to hear that.

But but I I'd like to hear further discussion and then we can decide.

We're gonna do a proposal.

I think that should be a committee, not one person kind of steering the committee.

So if we're gonna work off of a particular should come from a smaller group.

I move readjourn.

Yes.

Second, all right.

Any objection to that?

All in favor?

I once again I apologize.

Um glad you'd uh try to slip two motions into one sentence.

Thank you.

I just want him to get the case.

Yeah, I've seen it.