League of Women Voters of Northfield

Jane McWilliams, LWV Observer
All council present

There was confusion at the outset. The public notice about this evening’s meetings indicated there would be a closed meeting at 6 p.m. for the purposes of undertaking “a performance evaluation of the city administrator” and that the council “may discuss labor negotiations” (both discussions as permitted by statute). A regular council meeting was scheduled for 7:00.

In fact, at the request of the city administrator, the performance review was conducted during an open meeting at 6:00. When the League observer and others arrived at city hall shortly before 7, the council was in closed session (to discuss negotiations). Needless to say, this report lacks my observation of the evaluation process, but I learned subsequently the council was given a consolidated report of individual rankings each had done earlier, and that the meeting was mostly taken up with comments from individual council members. No decision was made at this time regarding a change in the administrator’s compensation as a result of the evaluation.

The mayor opened the scheduled regular meeting at 7:25. He made no mention of the nature or the results of the closed meeting. (During the open public comment portion of the meeting, Victor Summa called the council’s attention to their statutory obligation to do so.)

There was a public hearing on the 5th and Water Streets reconstruction which will include replacement of all city infrastructure, addition of streetscape enhancements identified by the Mayor’s Streetscape Taskforce, as well as some changes in parking in the area. (Drawings are available as addenda to the March 3, 2008 Council Meeting Agenda (www.ci.northfield.mn.us/meetings/council/2008/03/03/city_council_meeting64) Two downtown business owners (Joe Grundhoefer and Paul Smith) said while not thrilled about the assessments, they think it is a good enhancement, and it is part of their community duty to support the town. Joel Walinski Director of Public Works anticipates that the project will be completed substantially before the 2008 Jesse James Days event.

There was a divided vote on the resolution to retain Donnelly Development to assist the council in selecting a site for the municipal liquor store. At the January 14 work session, the council set criteria for the liquor store: control of the sale of alcohol; convenient location; location to strengthen the downtown; profitability. Donnelly will search for land parcels and buildings available within the C-1, C-2 zoning districts, as the Central Business District and slightly beyond this area. A short list with the greatest potential will be selected. The council will give direction for Donnelly to pursue a purchase agreement. Funding is established for each step allowing the consultants’ involvement to vary as determined by the city. During the discussion, Councilman Cashman asked the staff to bring a resolution eliminating the property in the 600 blocks from consideration “based on conflict of interest issues.” (The property owned by the Lansing family.) Councilman Nelson said he would vote against this because he is not sure the city should be in the liquor store business. Mayor Lansing did not explain his vote against the proposal. The other 5 councilmen supported the motion.

At the February 11 meeting, the council approved appointments to eight boards and commissions for which there were no contestants for the open seats. Tonight, they turned their attention to the remaining four, for which more people applied than there were openings, and upon which no action had been taken earlier. When Councilman Nelson said people who hadn’t been nominated should be notified, Mayor Lansing said letters had been sent.  Councilman Davis said he was concerned about the wording of the letter the mayor had sent, part of which he read aloud. He reminded Lansing that he had asked for information at the last meeting explaining his reasoning for the nominations. Moreover, Scott noted, there is no justification in the file. The mayor had no comment when Councilman Denison said he had been notified that one person was appointed to a board for which he had not applied.

Mayor Lansing tried to call for a vote, but the council was not ready. Davis said once more that at the last meeting the mayor had said justifications were in the file, but they are not. Mayor Lansing explained his appointment process:  A variety of people apply in a variety of ways; Administrative Assistant Kathy Frederickson collects these for the mayor’s review; Most often, he said he uses the recommendation of the board or commission for advice and he looks at the qualifications of the applicants and makes personal calls for clarification. He said he would not talk about the applicants publicly.

City Administrator Roder said the Charter is clear and he recommends that the council vote on the appointments. “If you aren’t satisfied with the nominations, vote them down. What is lacking here is teamwork. In my years of work in the public sector, I’ve never run into the request for justification. Until you agree to work together, the boards will suffer because of lack of appointees. It is clear Mayor Lansing isn’t going to bring further information.”

Cashman said he had tried to obtain the file containing the applications and discovered that only copies were available. Roder stated that the mayor had the file of the original applications.

Then the council decided to take up voting on one board at a time. During the discussion of the motions to approve each, they drifted away from the motion and to the issues of the locations of the file, taking up appointment procedures at a work session, questioning why the mayor had consulted an outside attorney, the leadership style of the mayor, the language in the mayor’s letter to non-appointed people. Councilman Davis wanted the council members to weigh in on the letter, which he thinks was prompted by his initiative to ask for justification for appointments not made. Eventually, the mayor’s recommended applicants were approved, albeit by a divided vote in several cases.

Earlier in the evening, representatives of youth organizations (Project Friendship and St Dominic School), called the Green Team, received recognition and funds from a representative of Waste Management for their work helping to recycle cardboard and paper. Energy Task Force members, George Kinney and Bruce Anderson reported on their work. They will bring final recommendations to the council on June 2. They recommended that the city send representatives to a summit meeting of Local Governments for Sustainability later this. Later in the meeting, it was decided that one council member and the city administrator would attend. Judy Code, representing a group of citizens who have been working on preparing for a visit in July of America in Bloom, distributed materials for the council to review. AIB judges will evaluate Northfield’s attempts to meet the organization’s criteria in pursuit of national recognition.  Red Wing was so honored in 2007.

The meeting ended at about 10:20 p.m.