Brooklyn Park Charter Commission Minutes Wednesday, April 8, :00 p.m. Brooklyn Township Conference Room

Transcription

1 Brooklyn Park Charter Commission Minutes Wednesday, April 8, :00 p.m. Brooklyn Township Conference Room 1. Call to Order/Roll Call Chair Jessica Bennion called the meeting to order at 7:00 p.m. Members present were:, Jessica Bennion, August Dauel, John Hultquist, Nausheena Hussain John O Hagan, Scott Simmons, David Williams; Council Liaison Peter Crema (arrived at 7:15 p.m.) and Staff Liaison Devin Montero Absent: Heidi Ritchie (excused); Gordy Aune, Jr. (excused) Commissioner Dauel stated he would like to make a motion. To postpone Charter business due to the Planning Commission meeting being held tonight to participate in the information about adding a hip hop club in the city at Noble Avenue and 85 th Avenue. He stated he was not in favor of it because he lived one street away from the proposed location. The motion failed due to a lack of a second. 2. Additions/Approval of Agenda of February 11, 2015 Motion Scott Simmons, seconded by David Williams to approve the agenda as presented. Motion carried unanimously. 3. Approval of Minutes 3.1 Motion Scott Simmons, seconded by August Dauel to approve the March 11, 2015 minutes as amended. Page 2, the sentence was amended as follows: Commissioner Williams stated he would like to get input from the Council as a group sooner rather than later and the letter would serve as talking points for that meeting. Page 2, the sentence was amended as follows: She asked the Commissioners if they wanted to table the discussion until next month week to have an opportunity to review the letter. Page 6, the sentence was deleted as follows: Chair Bennion stated there was a motion to table the discussion until next week. The motion carried unanimously. 1

2 4. Unfinished Business 5. Reports of Officers, Boards, and Standing Committees 5.1 Ranked Choice Voting Subcommittee Report Commissioner Williams stated he presented to three of five Commissions: Planning Commission, Budget Advisory Commission, and Recreation and Parks Advisory Commission. He stated he was scheduled to present at the Citizen Long-range Improvement Committee next month. He stated he presented at the Community Engagement Initiative meeting with Fair Vote Minnesota last month. He stated that Fair Vote Minnesota was in favor of Ranked Choice Voting (RCV) and he thought the representative gave an unbalanced presentation. They were the advocacy group in the metro area. He stated that in doing a lot of research, he felt the apprehension towards RCV came out of not understanding it, not knowing about it, the current voting method was the way it was always done, and why change it if it was not broken attitudes. He stated he would like to go to Channel 12 and ask them if they felt it was important enough to get it on their agenda. He stated the last place he would go to was the Park Pages publication to provide information. Commissioner Simmons questioned the neutrality of the presentations by Fair Vote Minnesota and thought it was clearly an advocacy presentation. He stated that it should be made clear when they were presenting to let everyone know they were strong proponents of RCV. Commissioner Williams stated he talked to the representatives to make sure they were not trying to advocate it but were only providing information. He stated he wouldn t use them again for a presentation but would use them as a resource. He stated he provided handouts at the CEI meeting that was informational only. Commissioner Dauel stated he agreed with Commissioner Simmons and the Commissioners had talked about putting out balanced information. He thought the Commission was putting the cart before the horse because the Commission had yet to include the Council in what they were discussing officially and were going out to individual Commissions and groups before it was approved by the Council. He stated it was the first task, to provide them the letter that the subcommittee was preparing. The fact that the subcommittee was going out and advocating or not, which he had not done was inappropriate until the Commission brought a letter to the Council. Commissioner Williams stated the Commissioners had a chance to deal with the issue last month to stop it and all agreed and encouraged them to go out to the Commissions. It was 2

3 discussed that they go out and give information. He stated the letter was prepared and on the agenda tonight to be discussed and was also provided to the Commissioners. Commissioner Dauel stated he believed the Charter Commission was getting a reputation now, about what was going on and the Commissioners should be following procedures. Commissioner Williams stated he took an issue about not following procedures. He stated the Council letter was on the agenda for review tonight. He stated that it was discussed that they go out to CEI and all Commissions and give an informational presentation. Chair Bennion stated she thought that the Commission wanted input from other Committees and Commissions. Not necessarily putting out information, but gathering information to make sure the community wanted the Commission to pursue RCV. She stated it seemed it turned in to giving more information than getting information. She stated her thought now was to close the subcommittee, and the issue was now up to the Commission. She stated that if the subcommittee was doing anything else, it would be on their own time and not representing the Commission. Commissioner Dauel stated he agreed that the Commission was supposed to have a letter for the Council and the Council had not received it from the Commission that RCV was their stance. He thought the subcommittee was out of step with basic procedures by going outside the Commission and advocating something the Commission hadn t given the Council an opportunity to vote on. He stated that RCV was being brought out and being championed in different Commissions and Committees because there was a single point of a side being taken and information being passed out and had yet to give the Council an opportunity to say yes or no. Chair Bennion stated that it got bigger than what it was planned on being and what needed to be done now was to look at what was before the Commission and work from there. Commissioner Dauel stated that a letter was needed stating what the Commission s opinions were and the vote that was taken. He stated it needed to go to the Council before the Commission went any further on anything or involved in any other meeting on the topic outside of the Commission. Chair Bennion stated the Commission had a joint meeting scheduled next month with the Council to discuss RCV with them. Commissioner Simmons stated he would advocate following the calendar they had adopted and if there was a reason to deviate from that the Commissioners should talk about it. He stated the next order of business was to meet with the Council and the Charter Commission should work on what the recommendation should look like. 3

4 He stated that some of it was premature because some of the material didn t actually have the language. There were elements of RCV that weren t addressed and discussed, like how many choices would there be and RCV had a number of different ways to manage and operate. He stated the Commissioners should do it in an orderly way like they put in the calendar and if the Commissioners couldn t agree with the calendar, then they should talk about it. He stated that just sending a letter stating what RCV was with an advocacy piece attached to it was not what the Commissioners agreed to. Commissioner Williams stated the Commission was on schedule and they went out to do the information gathering throughout the Commissions and community groups in February and would go out in May. He stated he took issue that he was advocating RCV at any of those meetings and he wasn t. He stated that the Fair Vote Minnesota presentation got out of hand and was unfortunate that it did. He stated he was not there to take a position and just wanted to put information out in front of the Commissions and groups and where the Charter Commission was on RCV. Chair Bennion suggested going to Item 7.1 for discussion. 6. New Business 7. Correspondence/Communications 7.1 Review Letter To Council on RCV Commissioner Simmons stated he didn t want to imply Commissioner Williams was advocating or did anything to advocate advocacy. He stated Fair Vote Minnesota was the one to be singularly responsible for advocating. Commissioner Dauel stated his issue was that it was discussed that there would be a pro and con represented and there wasn t one. Commissioner Williams stated it was information only and there would be a time for the pro and con. He stated the Commission took a vote and knew what their recommendation was going to be and after that it was left outside the Commission to continue it. Staff Liaison Montero stated he also addressed his concern regarding the possibility of having a separate ballot for RCV because the city was on an even year election cycle. He stated that election law required the ballot to be designed in a certain way and the races placed in a certain order. He provided examples of a Presidential ballot and a Governor s ballot showing the three columns with the races and questions that could potentially move the RCV races to a separate ballot. He stated he didn t know if a ranked choice voting race could be added to the regular ballot and the City Attorney would be providing an opinion on the issue prior to the joint meeting. 4

5 Commissioner Hultquist recommended revising the first sentence of the letter, City Charter to mandate using Ranked Choice Voting. He stated that the motion was, That we proceed with preparing a ranked choice voting system that we can present to the City Council. He stated it was different from what the letter said and needed to be revised to reflect what was actually passed by the Charter Commission. He stated the word mandate was a strong word and should be taken out of the first sentence to reflect what the motion said. He stated that Exhibit A looked like it was taken right from the Fair Vote Minnesota talking points and the language needed to be reworked so it was about information and not advocacy one way or the other. He suggested having in the letter: What the Charter Commission voted on to do and What RCV was. He stated one of the handouts was biased and the Your City, Your Vote handout was nonbiased. He stated that language could be substituted as Exhibit A because it described what it was and how the RCV ballots were counted, was nonbiased and very informative and easy to understand. Commissioner Williams stated he wanted to start as a basis of what the Commission was defining RCV and was more descriptive. He stated the second attachment detailed the proposed schedule. He stated the third attachment, if they got to that point, was a proposal on what needed to change in the Charter but understood the Attorney would assist on it. He stated he thought that was reasonable background information with the letter. Commissioner Simmons agreed with changing the sentence to what the motion was and didn t mind the exhibits if they were objective. He stated his only concern was the very last single sentence of the paragraph because it was premature of what the changes would be in the Charter and the Commission hadn t approached that subject yet. He stated it was basically an invitation letter to the Council. Commissioner Williams stated he would revise the letter to include the motion that was made, use the language in Attachment A which would say what ranked choice voting was, Attachment B as the schedule, and would work on the last sentence in the letter. He stated that the idea of using a separate ballot didn t seem like a good reason not to do ranked choice voting and would need to figure out how to place it on one ballot. Commissioner Simmons stated that research could be done on other municipalities that were pondering doing RCV in the even-year. He stated the city was a Charter City and had a lot of wiggle room and there was a lot of autonomy regarding RCV. 7.2 Review Park Pages Article on RCV Chair Bennion suggested holding off on the article on RCV until the Commissioners figured out what they were doing. She stated that if Commissioner Williams wanted to do it, he would have to do it as a resident and she didn t want the Charter Commission to be part of it. She stated the Commissioners were still gathering information and would be a great thing to do before going on the ballot. She stated it was too soon to do it now. 5

6 7.3 November 11, 2015 Meeting Staff Liaison Montero stated that November 11 was Veterans Day and the city offices were closed. He stated he reserved a room for November 10 if the Commission would like to meet in November. It was the consensus of the Commissioners to meet on November 10 at 7 p.m. 8. Adjournment Motion August Dauel, and seconded by John Hultquist to adjourn the meeting. Motion carried unanimously. The meeting adjourned at 7:47 p.m. Respectfully submitted, Devin Montero, Staff Liaison 6