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HomeMy WebLinkAboutCity Council - 10/07/2003 - Workshop APPROVED MINUTES EDEN PRAIRIE, CITY COUNCIL WORKSHOPMORUM TUESDAY, OCTOBER 7, 2003 CITY CENTER 5:00- 6:25 PM,HERITAGE ROOM H 6:30—7:00 PM, COUNCIL CHAMBER CITY COUNCIL: Mayor Nancy Tyra-Lukens, Councilmembers Sherry Butcher,Ron Case, and Jan Mosman, and Philip Young CITY STAFF: City Manager Scott Neal, Police Chief Dan Carlson,Fire Chief George Esbensen,Public Works Director Eugene Dietz, Director of Parks and Recreation Bob Lambert, City Attorney Ric Rosow, and Recorder Lorene McWaters Heritage Room H I. CALL MEETING TO ORDER II. APPROVAL OF AGENDA III. SEVEN-MEMBER COUNCIL City Manager Scott Neal said a possible expansion to a seven-member Council was raised by Mayor Jean Harris shortly before she passed away in 2001, and was mentioned by some candidates during the last Council election. At the February 18, 2003, Council Workshop, Council deliberated on the issue of a seven-member Council, among other issues. Council asked staff to prioritize the issue into the third and fourth quarters of 2003. Staff started research in the third quarter and scheduled this presentation for the fourth quarter. Assistant to the City Manager Mike Barone prepared a staff report comparing Eden Prairie's Council structure to nearby communities with similar demographics. Neal noted that Barone's original report has been revised to reflect that the City of Plymouth expanded from a five-to seven-member Council in 1993. Neal said the Council is now in a position to decide whether or not a seven-member Council merits being put to a vote. He said if any conclusion can be drawn from Barone's report, it is that Eden Prairie's governmental structure is not unusual. Neal said Eden Prairie fits a pro forma of city governments, although there are variations found among the cities that were researched. Neal said his intention in preparing the report for Council was to provide them with information and not political advice. Mayor Tyra-Lukens opened the floor to questions and comments from Council. Councilmember Young thanked Barone for his work on the report. He said he agrees that City Council Workshop Minutes October 7,2003 Page 2 the main question facing the Council is whether or not they should put the seven-member council issue to a vote. He said it is more important to determine what the people of Eden Prairie want than what the Council members themselves think of it. Young said he feels this issue has been around long enough that it should be put to a vote. Tyra-Lukens asked City Attorney Rosow for a timeline in the event Council decides to put the question on the ballot. Rosow said Council would have to pass an ordinance calling for a vote at least 60 days in advance of the next regularly scheduled election. Councilmember Butcher asked if the Council is authorized to set an election or if a petition is required. Rosow said the decision to put the seven-member council question on the ballot is solely in the hands of the Council. However, in order to consider changing from a Statutory Plan B city to Home Rule Charter, either the Council can call for a vote or citizens may petition for it. Mosman said that when Eden Prairie was chartered as a City, its leaders chose the Plan B form of governance withh a five-member Council. At that time,the City leaders projected that the population would grow to 120,000 and they felt a five-member Council would provide adequate representation. Mosman said she feels Council would need a solid reason to change what was decided at that time and has worked well ever since. She said some of the reasons mentioned for going to seven members are better representation for the business community and increased diversity. She said Council and staff have made great strides in business relations over the last year with its association with Habitat for Technology and the ongoing series of"meet-and-greets"with local businesses of various sizes and types. Mosman said the Council has been and is diverse in relation to income, age, gender,marital status,race and profession. Mosman also said there is no guarantee that having more Council members would result in"better"representation. Tyra-Lukens agreed with Mosman, and said the Eden Prairie School Board has seven members but is not any more diverse than the five-member Council. Tyra-Lukens said she was stunned to learn that only one City has chosen to go from five to seven members. She also pointed out that each state still has only two senators regardless of the size of population. Tyra-Lukens said she needs to know exactly what it is that needs to be fixed. She said her opinion is that moving from five to seven members would basically mean"more government,"which is not what most people say they are looking for. Young said the discussion was going where he had hoped it wouldn't. He said the issue is whether enough people in the community want to vote on the question of increasing Council size. Butcher said she disagreed, and that she feels the Council must think about and discuss the pros and cons of moving to seven members. She asked what measures Council can use to determine whether or not there is enough support to put the issue to a vote. She said if the Council doesn't at least look into it, it will become an election issue again. Case said he too needs a better sense largeness of scale before he can decide whether or not to take this to the public for a vote. He said he has heard it raised only by a couple of people and has seen a couple of letters in the newspapers. Case suggested forming a task force,possibly made up of former elected officials,to study the matter. City Council Workshop Minutes October 7,2003 Page 3 He said he does not sense that it is a"massive grass-roots movement right now." He cautioned that Council needs to be picky about what they place on the ballot before the public. Case said he would be willing to take a Saturday morning for the Council to meet and build some criteria for whether or not the issue needs to be put to a vote. Butcher said she would like to have a discussion about the merits of moving to a seven-member Council, and include someone who has worked with a seven-member Council. Mosman agreed that she has not felt that this is a burning issue. Butcher said she has received a few a-mails from a few individuals. Young said people who have contacted him feel a five-member body is prone to special interest influence. Young said he believes issues would be considered with more deliberation by a seven-member Council. Case said regularly held elections already ensure people have a voice in representation. Young stressed that more people have raised the seven-member Council issue with him over the last year than any other issue. He said he has heard from in excess of 30 people. Tyra-Lukens asked Neal about his experience working with governing bodies of various sizes. Neal said he had worked with a three-member utility board,which he considered too small. He said in his experience, an odd number of members ranging 5 to 9 seems to work. He said he feels Young is correct about the process being more deliberative, and thus slow,with a larger number of people. He said if there were a strong grass-roots movement to go to seven members, all of the Councilmembers would probably have a sense of that. Butcher asked if survey questionnaire could be conducted to determine the level of support. However, she said she is unsure of whether or not a survey would produce useful data because many people have never given the topic much thought. Tyra-Lukens asked what the other Councilmembers thought of conducting a survey. Young said he didn't think the Council believed in surveys. Case said a survey could provide an idea of the importance of this issue in relation to other issues. Butcher cautioned that the Council needs to be very careful in determining whether or not there is enough demand to put the issue to a vote. He also thinks a resident satisfaction survey would be good way of finding out whether or not people feel underrepresented. Mosman said she also supports asking the question on a survey. Tyra-Lukens said she feels recent surveys conducted by the City have raised more questions than they answered. She wondered whether or not Council could really expect to get any sort of definitive answers from a survey. Young asked if a special election could be called for this issue. Rosow said State statutes say a vote on seven-member Council would have to be held during the next regularly scheduled election. Case pointed out that the next regular election is a presidential election, so the question might receive a lot of random,uninformed votes. Young said those who are uniformed about a topic will typically vote for no change. Young asked for clarification about what the Council plans to do about the possibility of expanding to seven members. Case said he does not feel a seven-member Council can be discussed without also discussing the Home Rule Charter structure. Butcher said she doesn't think hearing from 30 individuals merits automatically putting the question to a vote,but she would like to continue the Council's discussion of the topic. Tyra-Lukens City Council Workshop Minutes October 7,2003 Page 4 agreed. Tyra-Lukens said she feels it would need to be a change that the Council feels it can support. Case noted that the research shows that it is not common for a Plan B city to go from five to seven members. Young said it is also not common to spend$1.5 million on old houses. Case said it is common to preserve a sense of community, and historic preservation is part of that. Neal said staff will investigate how to best gather information on the level of public support for a vote on a seven-member Council. However,workshop sessions are already booked for the remainder of the year. IV. OTHER TOPICS Council Chamber VI. OPEN FORUM(Scheduled participants, 6:30-7:00 p.m.) No one was scheduled to speak at Open Forum. VH. OPEN PODIUM (Unscheduled participants, 6:50-7:00 p.m.) No one requested to speak at Open Podium. VIII. ADJOURNMENT