[0:00] i will call the dark 1st 2025

[0:06] park commission meeting to order first order business is the roll call all right I'm going to call roll uh Rod Axel

[0:15] are you here present present barnes are you here here present tahir are you here

[0:23] he has an excused absence uh Mr eagle are you here i am here uh Kathy Gustoson

[0:30] resigned her seat uh Cynthia Hunt are you here i am here here ron Lindell are

[0:36] you here right over here here karen Lungquist are you here yep I'm here here

[0:41] j Masuja are you here here here mcgovern are you here i'm here here

[0:49] emily Melby are you here here here uh Lola Oro are you here present

[0:56] present chair Peterson are you here i am here michael Ramirez are you here

[1:03] absent thorson are you here here

[1:10] thank you um so uh tonight's uh the

[1:15] organizational meeting commission which means we'll be electing a couple roles

[1:22] and officers so that's really section three here so start out by

[1:28] call item 3.1 which is appointing a recording secretary um that we have one adrien is currently

[1:36] secretary i would have a motion to appoint someone as the secretary of the commission so move

[1:43] second okay and were you thinking Adrian as if he's willing

[1:48] it's been seconded by the recording secretary any discussion we'll move to a vote all

[1:55] those in favor say I i I oppose the motion unanimously next up is the

[2:01] attorney uh the attorney represents us uh and uh

[2:06] while we have uh recently used the services of the city attorney for this

[2:11] role um I want to remind people that we have the ability to pick from and that

[2:16] job and so if there's great satisfaction with what Melissa has been doing that now would be the time to kind of tough

[2:23] that out and send her on her way um I personally have been very happy with the work that she's been doing but if you

[2:29] know I want to make sure that people understand we do have we do have a choice and who we so with that I will

[2:35] open the floor to nominations for attorney for the charter commission or a motion

[2:41] i move that we appoint Melissa okay attorney motion by

[2:48] Lindell seconded by you seconded it yep um any

[2:55] discussion none all those in favor signify by saying I i i

[3:03] next up is item 3.3 electing the chair um I will open the floor to motions on

[3:10] this item mr chair I make a motion to uh reappoint you as chair there a second i second i

[3:18] would be happy to do it again oh nice there any discussion

[3:23] hearing none we'll come to a vote all those in favor say I i those opposed carries unanimous

[3:30] and finally we have the vice chair emily Melby is currently the vice

[3:36] chair um I would open the floor to a motion regarding the vice chair position

[3:42] i would nominate Emily Melby there a second move and seconded that Emily be

[3:48] reappointed as vice chair of the charter commission are you willing to do that yes okay thank you uh any

[3:55] discussions hearing none we'll come to a vote all those in favor say I i opposed the motion carries unanimous next item

[4:02] up is item 4.1 approving the meeting minutes and we are approving the minutes

[4:09] of May 2nd 2024 regular meeting the July

[4:16] 10th 24- 24 meeting and then the January 9th to

[4:23] um to those minutes before I hear a motion if I may also um pursuant to the bylaws

[4:30] that we recently updated last year um they're provided there's they're sent out to I believe uh the chair and the

[4:37] vice chair u within a couple of days after the meeting um and any clarifications are made and then they're

[4:44] sent out by Adrian to the entire commission so um these should be ones

[4:49] that would have already have been received by you with the exception of perhaps I don't know did you get the April 10th ones out to the whole group i

[4:55] think I did okay if not I know that they were in the packet so they're in here wanted to make sure that you all that they have been circulating for a while

[5:03] yes and and while I do look at them before they go out um I'm not perfect

[5:09] and so if you you know if people find things happy to happy to make changes so

[5:14] anybody have any modific

[5:38] motion carries unanimously i wasn't clear on the July 10th meeting

[5:44] so that's noted yep uh nothing under five unfinished

[5:50] business so we'll move on to new business so one followup from the 2020

[5:58] so um just a reminder for the and as part of the charter review we had a

[6:05] couple changes that we were interested in doing there are I think they fell into two

[6:11] categories ones that require stepping and ones that I think we were ready to

[6:17] kind of forward only related to the uh change of titles and the city offices

[6:25] and so um the ones that came forward at this one were really primarily focused

[6:30] on the changes so Melissa I'll hand it off to you to kind of walk through the Thank you chair um we have a PowerPoint

[6:36] presentation here adrien next slide so as a reminder there are several different ways to amend the charter and

[6:43] as part of your request to me following the the review of charter se charter

[6:49] chapters four five and six over the past uh couple of months um I'm proposing uh

[6:54] that we do it by uh city council amendment uh by ordinance which requires

[7:01] a unanimous vote and by unanimous it means all seven members of the of the city council have to vote in favor um

[7:09] all right as a reminder um we're moving forward or for your request we're moving forward with amendments to chapter 5

[7:16] which were discussed at the last April 10th meeting and then chapter six which were discussed at the April 10th meeting

[7:22] and the one before that um there were um other amendments that were discussed

[7:28] related to percentages and how often we had um we had receipts and processed

[7:34] petitions in the past also amendments to 6 6.06 and 6.07 related to readability

[7:41] and we discussed those at the last meeting um given the tight time frame between it was about 10 days between our

[7:49] meeting and um getting the packet out for this meeting pursuant to our roles

[7:54] um we didn't have enough time to do a thorough job uh required to to bring that to you for this meeting but we

[8:01] certainly can do that at the next time that we that we meet um probably for our periodic review um sessions next

[8:08] whenever you want them to be but probably next year um and we can do some more research on that we have to go into

[8:14] the to the to the dark storage areas of the clerk's office to get that

[8:20] information uh and and then also um we wanted to

[8:27] um take a little bit more time and have more people involved um in the discussion of 6.06 and 6.07 um because

[8:35] we um some folks that were very interested in that weren't present so we wanted to make sure everybody got to be

[8:40] here all right with that as an introduction we'll start with chapter five um as you recall there was a

[8:46] request uh two different kinds of amend amendments going on here in these three sections the first type they're all

[8:54] clerical um clarifying I should say uh it's largely clerical in nature um so

[9:00] there was a request in the title um of each of them to match because each of

[9:05] these petition um sections had a different cadence in the naming of them

[9:10] uh and then also there was a request to change the petition um form to add email

[9:17] and telephone to make the confirmation and communication process easier for the

[9:23] city clerk during the during the back and forth um that the process that's required by each of these um initiative

[9:30] referendum and recall so the orange is language that is that is I'm proposing be struck and the

[9:38] blue underlined is language I'm proposing to be added um that's not the actual way that we have to do it in our

[9:44] city ordinance um proposals but I just thought for ease of seeing it I thought

[9:49] I would do it like this for you any um and thank you Adrian so that's the next one same kind of thing going on and then

[9:56] the next one is the same uh any questions on on those edits to chapter 5

[10:05] go ahead Rob yeah uh I just have one question on the on the last

[10:12] um petition work that was done with the signatures was there enough did the form

[10:17] itself get kind of crowded with all the stuff we're looking to make sure that is added to it for example the name address

[10:24] printed name signature email telephone is there enough room in there where someone can actually read it and

[10:29] someone's not using a you know a miniature writing to fill in the the line so chair and members um I think

[10:37] that's a great question i'm glad you asked it this is only for those five committee members it's not for everyone

[10:43] that's signing okay so there I think there there should be enough room and usually that information is typed okay

[10:49] because it's submitted to the city clerk on the petition so I think it should be readable one and small enough to still

[10:56] have enough room sir

[11:03] um I I just have a question whether or not uh in the recall recall or that says

[11:10] referendum uh referendum I'm sorry go back one Adrian yep um

[11:17] the in the in the as I'm in the petition figuring out

[11:23] where it is relative to anyway it's it's a question of the

[11:31] referendum can be a repeal or a vote and

[11:37] box it doesn't say that it just says for the vote

[11:57] oh I see what you're saying um

[12:03] and I think I understand the question that you're asking um it's a little bit subtle here but I

[12:09] think that Yeah I think that like appeal and submission to the vote are like the

[12:14] same thing well except that in a repeal the council

[12:21] can do it itself and for

[12:28] so it seems like you shouldn't it would be consistent the

[12:34] upper paragraph which says proposing the repeal uh or the

[12:43] uh proposing Well there are two ways to repeal it I guess one by council and one

[12:50] by voter i'm not sure it's necessary i'm

[12:56] just raising that question as the inconsistency so chair

[13:02] um extremely happy to to take a look you know to bring this back again if you'd

[13:08] like i'm just comparing the different um petition um boxes here

[13:15] uh and the the

[13:20] referendum and the pet and the

[13:26] recall talk about submitting it to the voters registered in

[13:31] Bloomington of an election and that is consistent with the

[13:37] petition as well um petition with the

[13:44] council repeal repeal

[13:49] or that at this point the council has a choice it seems to me

[13:57] petition the council for repeal or for submission to the voters

[14:06] so once the petition has got is validated and all the signatures are submitted and so forth the council could

[14:14] just say "Okay we're going to repeal it." Yeah so So thinking about your proposal here

[14:21] what you're really proposing perhaps is at the end of the line that starts with

[14:28] the undersigned petitioners and it ends with petition the city council you're saying that it should say or repeal or

[14:35] repeal it's ad submission yeah I think I see what you're talking about there

[14:45] any other thoughts on that that it's confusing as written

[14:52] that's all I just It could be so much easier

[14:57] for sort of a theme that's that's sort of a theme in the charter sure but I I again as I said I don't think it it's

[15:05] right when these are for people who want to do a petition and

[15:11] they should be able to read it and understand what they have to do without having someone translate it

[15:24] what grade level did you say we would mention a grade level uh chair members

[15:29] when we write ballot questions and ballot education we we strive for a uh 12th grade um

[15:36] level um so in looking in looking at the

[15:43] subsequent sections of the referendum section so once the petition is complete

[15:51] uh the council can reconsider the ordinance which is why they believe what you're getting to so the council could take action and it doesn't automatically

[15:57] go to the voters so

[16:05] so theoretically if the council takes action then the petition itself is moved there's no point in it well the petition

[16:13] operates through the council's action

[16:19] petitions are prompts the council forces the council to reconsider if it wants to

[16:24] mhm yes petition the council for repeal

[16:33] or it's I like that petition the council so it would say

[16:40] here petition the council for repeal or its submission to the vote that's more

[16:48] technically accurate and that's what's going you

[16:53] know person to person but

[16:59] so you think it would be saying petition the council for repeal or its submission to a vote is that what you're thinking

[17:06] repeal or ore strike or

[17:12] you can strike it could be petition the conflict to repeal

[17:18] or for repeal is for me to technically

[17:24] they're reconsidering it technically what's happening a consideration right

[17:31] of the ordinance I think they're asking in in kind of natural terms they're asking council to repeal it that's what

[17:37] ordinary I think that's what ordinary people want right so they they would do it the appropriate way I'm

[17:47] Yeah and if you look at the beginning of 5.11 a petition for the repeal or

[17:53] submission so would be repeating that language for repeal or submission i

[17:59] almost think maybe would read here in that section that I was pointing to before petition

[18:05] the council for repeal or submission right yeah that's that would mimic the

[18:10] language at the top sure up there repeal or submission you can strike it keep it

[18:16] remove it but if it's submitted to a vote isn't the submission to vote to repeal it or it can be like you can also

[18:23] submit it to I want this adopted right so is it to have an ordinance adopted or

[18:29] to repeal it so this is this is just the referendum which is solely about repeal it is that's my question is about

[18:36] repealing right right that's what a referendum is a petition for the repeal of an

[18:46] ordinance the repeal by the voters of an ordinance why repeal or submission of a

[18:52] vote because they go together so the repeal you're asking the council the council can repeal it so you're asking

[18:57] for two things oh first thing you're asking is you're asking city council please repeal this okay and if they

[19:03] don't do that then it goes then you can get then it goes to Yeah yeah why not adopt language from the position

[19:20] chair members the reason I think that that language doesn't work is because initiative is adopting new language so

[19:28] they're petitioning the council to say please adopt this ordinance and if they don't and if the council doesn't adopt

[19:34] it then it goes to the voters it's like for example some adoption for be call trying to previous

[19:44] recall it's different

[19:50] in in recall recall the council is doesn't have any

[19:56] action it has to go to the voters yeah it goes the voters unless the person resigns of an elected official

[20:03] referendum so I think I is that if you go back to the initiative

[20:10] petition page here for example if you read the text down

[20:16] there I think what you're proposing is that we we lift that changing one word

[20:23] saying petition the council for it repeal repeal lift that lift that full sentence

[20:30] changing that one word and and and yeah

[20:35] changing adoption to repeal yep and then at the end you

[20:40] have to say approval or disapproval in order to kind of make that clear

[20:48] or in lie thereof it's submission to the voters for their approval or disapproval

[20:53] yeah yeah well no because the voters can only approve well this is we're talking about the lifted stuff brought over to

[20:59] the to the referendum section oh I see so we can have those petitions similar

[21:06] yes karen that address is kind of you're trying to kind of make it be similar

[21:15] so but that would that would remove the language about it being detrimental to the welfare of the city is that also

[21:20] your desire members so right now if you go to referendum the next one says

[21:27] understanding the nature of the ordinance attached and believing it to be detrimental

[21:33] that would that would go away as well does that really change anything though if you take that

[21:38] out somebody's going through all the work of repealing it they must think it's done

[21:44] it's an effort to sell it

[22:04] yeah there's no there's no finding by anyone that it's actually detrimental it's just the voter is deciding whether

[22:10] to keep it or not right mhm

[22:18] so I can go into this PowerPoint and edit it live

[22:25] it's on SharePoint it's on C drive that's where you grabbed

[22:31] it from yes mhm i'll have to close it and open it again yeah there

[22:39] that would that be something that would like okay it's a sense of group that

[22:44] we'd like to see that okay

[22:55] adrian common common common uh no common projects that charter

[23:08] Maybe

[23:27] while we're waiting on this does anybody else have anything else they want to suggest

[23:33] what was that any anybody have any other changes they want to suggest here while

[23:38] no i

[23:44] don't anything else in the agenda i guess we could go through

[23:50] six that one's real simple do you want me to pop over to

[23:55] that um while you're at it why don't we edit this and kind of get this done okay fine

[24:01] well no pressure no pressure it's not a problem

[24:06] the resolutions get signed proposed that we change it to the undersigned voters

[24:12] registered in Bloomington or leave the undersigned petitioners were we lifting

[24:17] we were just going to take the understand voters register to vote language and just for flipped it over changing

[24:24] the act to

[24:29] repeal disapproval to the end of the

[24:34] change that was being discused

[25:03] okay

[25:11] the alternative for this is to come back to it right find five more minutes so

[25:18] I'm committed all right do you have a dad joke you can sell share with us dad joke you know the nice

[25:26] thing about at my age I forgot all of them

[25:34] i'm looking at 5.05 where there's that language and I don't think I missed it on which one was it

[25:41] by the other one for the repeal where there's that language where it says the underside

[25:48] voters registered in Bloomington understanding the terms and the nature of the petition the council for its

[25:54] adoption this is on 5.05 yeah or in lie thereof for commission to voters

[25:59] registered in Blooming for their approval i don't see that language on the one for the

[26:05] I think the idea is that we're going to bring that over to the Oh was that it oh okay the idea is that I was reading 5.05

[26:13] language okay sorry that I missed that i was reading trying to figure out going

[26:19] between them somebody make edits to after this i can also do it i made I made a fresh version

[26:26] a fresh PowerPoint so it's slide six there we

[26:31] go there you got it yeah so we're talking about this blue

[26:36] here it's in the nature of the artist okay let me show the screen again it's appeal or in

[26:41] l of or it submission to the voters yes

[26:57] so the orange is the text that used to that's currently there and then the blue is carried over

[27:04] so the one thing on here that we discussed that I'm not seeing is at the end at the end approval or disapproval

[27:12] okay that now um I'm getting right here i'll do it right here

[27:22] agree in term of the detrimental language from this one yeah and so that it just kind of gets rid of that

[27:27] detrimental language which at least from my perspective doesn't doesn't mean

[27:33] anything just extra words in there so okay so now take out I think we get it

[27:41] closer to the 12th grade understanding yeah yeah

[27:59] now if you do a spell check how many errors comes not going to do that now russ I'm just

[28:05] trying to make more work does it chair do you think it adds value

[28:12] to say the voters registered in Bloomington i'm just curious i'm not

[28:17] saying that it doesn't i'm just It feels like words i don't I think it does

[28:22] because um a lot of times when you're circulating petitions like people go to

[28:28] the farmers market and circulate a petition and it's random people i think there's a certain there's a

[28:34] certain set of people who read it and say I'm not a registered voter sign so it's like you have to be a registered

[28:40] voter right i just asked language and the other one didn't it didn't used to

[28:45] that just said petitioners so I I think it actually improves things that to put it in that other one too probably

[28:51] increases the likelihood that the number of valid get are actually useful

[28:58] and they check them anyway just a curiosity why is uh why isn't it

[29:04] limited to those voters who actually voted in the last election

[29:13] that's a political question members there it just isn't required because I don't think you could

[29:20] it just isn't it isn't required i think it would be terribly challenging to administer that as well plus arguably

[29:28] the people that the people that are in that are coming up to vote on this didn't

[29:35] necessarily vote in the last election because it was an ordinance that was adopted by the council so it doesn't I

[29:42] mean if you're speaking of recall I guess perhaps that's that would apply there but with regard to referendum

[29:51] or or initial initiative they're seeking to undo or to do something that the council

[29:57] did i think more or didn't more fundamentally um in order to get seven

[30:04] votes for what we're doing here what we have to propose is not have to be not

[30:11] controversial okay so I think we could have a conversation around that but I personally would oppose including it in

[30:17] this because I think it converts this from being something that will likely just kind of slide right through the council to something that probably would

[30:24] pick up at least I'm not suggesting we do it just curious as to why it isn't yeah I

[30:30] think it because it because it is I think is probably the somebody decided it the model charter in 1960 model

[30:37] charter so it could probably have that other way that's done yeah a lot of things that are in here that are just

[30:43] right just like that other place that'd be a challenge administratively be very hard

[30:49] would Yeah i think it makes sense yeah

[31:01] so hey you

[31:14] sorry is there another version no oh well I mean uh yes I did yes I did

[31:19] make that edit to six

[31:26] there we go okay so the question here right now is regarding the 5.11

[31:33] language which is the referendum language and we've made this change to it um so right

[31:43] reflects our intent to I think it's an improvement that was a good suggestion gold star for Ron Barnes

[31:52] hope we we adopt that idea name there you go put that on the refrigerator

[32:00] okay uh any objection to including that in the final

[32:07] mot um so I think the question at this point um this point

[32:17] one and the

[32:23] the resolutions there's two resolutions one for chapter 5 and one for chapter that's all travel separately

[32:31] we have talked about chapter five right now so let's do the text chapter

[32:37] So on the page that's marked in the corner resolution uh making a

[32:49] recommendation that made by is there a

[32:55] seconded by Ron I saw around 10 any discussion so this is with the change

[33:02] that's shown on the screen for 51 any discussion

[33:09] right hearing no further discussion we will come to a vote all those in favor signify by saying I

[33:16] any opposed uh is adopted unanimously remission is adopted we'll go on to the chapter six

[33:23] changes okay this

[33:34] All righty the only thing that's changing here is deputy deputy

[33:41] correct uh chair and members that is the only thing changing um the title of this

[33:48] position um in the marketplace and um in the profession has changed uh and deputy

[33:55] is the more commonly used term uh and so there is desire to mod that language it

[34:04] our financial management policies and in our compensation set uh compensation plan and in our employment roles and so

[34:13] the the hope and goal would be that we would time the adoption the the amendment of those documents as well to

[34:19] correspond the effective date of of this ordinance okay

[34:24] any discussion on this one one thing I will mention is that uh just just to recall there were some other language

[34:31] changes in here that we talked about doing um those didn't didn't get done in

[34:36] time for this and so was had a little bit of time urgency or not but we're moving this forward and we'll circle

[34:42] back on those other items so with that any other questions or comments about this change

[34:50] not hearing any so on the page that's marked 28 on the right chart there's a

[34:55] resolution in section 6 3 606 and 607 of the charter a motion to approve that

[35:01] would be in order i'd so move the resolution is there a second second

[35:09] any discussion no discussion we'll come to a vote

[35:15] by saying

[35:21] unanimously I think in section 7 which may Can I finish the PowerPoint

[35:29] on so here's the statute I thought it'd be helpful just to what's happening here so with regard so here we are in the

[35:35] orange right now this is you all are making recommendation to the city council and then and then there's a

[35:41] cadence of what has to happen within a month they have to um receive it that's going to happen on Monday

[35:49] night oh member Vermier asked

[35:58] um we're going to we've asked we've put a placeholder in the agenda um so that

[36:03] we'll replace it with this information and update it and then that will be formally received we want to do that

[36:10] because the timing of this is important so we want to mark that date uh and then we'll publish notice the notice will

[36:16] contain the text of these actual the actual text of these amendments and then there will be two public hearings one on

[36:22] chapter 5 and one on chapter 6 and as I mentioned before there needs to be a unanimous vote and then within one month

[36:30] um that vote has to happen so there are two meetings that it can happen at in June and I've um worked with staff to

[36:36] pull the members and they understand the importance of everyone being there and so we are optimistic that that will

[36:42] happen in no in in June and then we publish it in the suncur uh in its in

[36:49] its totality uh and then if we don't get a petition uh requesting a referendum of

[36:56] it um then uh within 60 days it or excuse me within 90 days then it's

[37:03] effective all right so the next here's the what that looks like okay

[37:11] public hearing it's June so the public hearing will either be on

[37:16] June 2nd my my suggestion is that it'll be on June 2nd um that's when we're

[37:22] going to publish it um there's a chance I guess that they would open it on p on

[37:27] June 2nd and continue it until June 30th um just uh in case they didn't have

[37:33] everyone there or or whatever might have happened just to note for everybody that

[37:38] there is a meeting in between those two but it's a study meeting uh the council has gone back to having study meetings

[37:45] and there's a desire to not have it at the study meeting um but it is possible

[37:50] it's a it's a regular meeting of the city council so they could move it to that as well but this is this is the

[37:56] most likely scenario all right any questions

[38:03] and that will be in traveling with the materials as well all right

[38:09] we can edit this for edits no edits to the no edits to the titles

[38:15] no all right okay let's move on to nine points in the report on page 51 of the

[38:23] agenda

[38:32] so the change

[38:48] uh any discussion regarding the

[38:55] report none I would receive A motion to adopt the annual

[39:01] report that is our second do that one mark and J have the

[39:09] second hearing none we'll come to a vote all

[39:14] those in favor signifies by saying I i opposed unanimously is there any other

[39:21] business to come i I would be willing to entertain a

[39:28] motion to adjurnn so move by Brona

[39:33] seconded by Michael it's not debatable so all those

[39:41] saying I the motion carries we are