League of Women Voters

Jane McWilliams, LWV Observer

The Special Meeting was called to order at 6 p.m., and then a motion was made to close the meeting (as allowed by state law) so that the council “may develop or consider offers for the purchase of a liquor store site.” The meeting was reopened at 7:55, almost an hour after the stated time for the Work Session. The council unanimously approved a motion, prepared (apparently during the closed session) by City Attorney Maren Swanson:

The council rejects the two proposals which will be identified by Brian O’Connell, which do not meet the minimum requirements of the Request for Proposals.  The council directs staff to negotiate with the other five proposers for a lease or sale price which is favorable to meet or exceed the council’s optimum business model.

The council directs staff to begin design of OSHA required repairs for the existing store, in case an acceptable agreement cannot be negotiated for a new store.

The two rejected proposals were:  property owned by Virginia Gleason, across from the Target store, rejected because it lies outside the prescribed zones (C-1 or C-2, essentially, the central business district) established by the council; and property owned by AK Kayoum at Highway 3 and Third Street which was deemed too small and lacked adequate parking space.

Community Development Director Brian O’Connell indicated the location of these two properties on a display which also showed the locations of the 5 still under consideration. No details about the nature of the individual proposals were revealed. In a memo to the city council dated November 21, Interim City Administrator Joel Walinski states:

“There is clear law in the data practices act, which the City must follow and makes most of the RFP proposal data nonpublic until the evaluation process is complete because of the City potentially negotiating for the purchase of property. This classification is mandatory; the city cannot waive this classification.”

In an update on Representative Journalist Bonnie Obremski’s November 13 blog on http://locallygrownnorthfield.org/post/6582/, she provides a copy of the rating sheet used by the EDA representatives and others to guide the staff’s recommendations:   http://locallygrownnorthfield.org/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/rfp-scoring-11-6-08-base-doc.pdf. This sheet lists the seven people and organizations submitting proposals and indicates the criteria used for rating each.

There was no indication as to when the council might expect a report from staff on the progress and/or completion of the negotiations.

The topic of the Work Session was the process for a performance review of  Interim City Administrator Joel Walinski. This had been suggested by Councilman Scott Davis in order to provide the next council with information which might be helpful as they decide how to proceed to hire a permanent city administrator. Human Resources Manager Liz Wheeler had distributed to the council the city’s personnel evaluation form, but had not received completed ones from 3 council members. Once all are submitted, Wheeler will tabulate the results and place them in Walinski’s file.

There was discussion about whether the results should be considered by the current council. The consensus was that Walinski should review the tabulated results so that he might benefit from the comments to, as he put it “know whether he’s doing the job.”  He went on to say that if the new council wishes, they can request a closed session to discuss his performance, using the review.

According to Wheeler, any council member may have access to the administrator’s performance review tabulation and if they desire, may request that the council meet in closed session to discuss it. At the same time, if he chooses, Walinski may request that the discussion be public.

The meeting was adjourned at 8:20.