Staff Present
Greg Williams, Mayor’s Office

Henry Lyons agreed to have the members start the meeting at 6:40 p.m. to wait for more people.

Aggie Stackhaus thanked everyone for coming to participate and also talked about the work so far of the Commission. She said that the commission is pursuing a streamlined, constitutional charter. She said the Charter had been amended numerous times since 1925. Four years ago the effort failed due to hot button issues being all mixed up in Question One. It was her intent that Question One this time would be a clean document which will create a constitutional charter with greater operational flexibility. The Commission has reached consensus to keep the Council-Manager form of government with the City Manager in charge of operations and the Mayor and Council setting policy. The City Manager made suggestions on how to delineate the departments in the charter and we are considering those suggestions.

Mark Esping said he has fought any change in the initiative petition, referendum and recall process. It is not broke and Councilwoman McFadden-Weaver’s recall effort showed the system works. She beat the recall effort. Clay Chastain has misused the initiative process, but we shouldn’t change for one person. Esping said he pulled a newspaper clipping from KC Jones in November 2001 and it read that the 2001 new charter was aimed at enriching her key constituencies, developers, attorneys, and bond dealers. The 2001 proposal said that bonds did not have to be bid out. Esping believes everything should have to go to bid.

Jack Holland said that the City Council needed to set guidelines from the 2001 charter and the bid process would be in the code of ordinances for all professional services.

Aggie Stackhaus said that bid rules should be spelled out and she was in favor of bidding professional services. She also said just because it was in KC Jones, doesn’t mean it is true.

Jack Holland said that the new charter should be constitutional and putting the bidding process and details in the charter would be contradictory to making the charter constitutional in nature.

Henry Lyons then said he was against any change in term limits and any change in the initiative petition process. North of the River were strong supporters of term limits when they passed in 1991.

Aggie Stackhaus asked if anyone had an opinion on city employees being involved in the political process such as running for school board or state representative. Amy Dahlstrom, Councilman John Fairfield’s assistant, said that even a volunteer with PIAC or another board or commission must resign their volunteer spot in order to run for office.