This is a simple website to help communicate information about the Charter Commission Petition for Monticello, MN.
Data Center Ordinance Workshop at Community Center 1APR @ 5pm. I'll be there.
The League of Minnesota Cities has a handbook that goes into great detail about Home Rule Charter Cities and compares them to Statutory Cities. At a high level, there are two forms of city government in the state of Minnesota which are Statutory and Home Rule Charter. Monticello is currently a Statutory City, which means the state defines its framework by MN Statue 412. Home Rule Charter Cities, or simply Charter Cities, are defined by MN Statue 410. MN Statue 410 defines a very basic framework for a city compared to MN Statue 412, and it is up to the Charter Commission to fill in the blank space. While it might be daunting task, there is significant historical precedent for charters and they give a city additional flexibility to address its needs that a Statutory framework might not have. An attractive feature of charters is the ability for the public to directly vote on ordinaces by passing them through initiatives or repealing them through referendums. Additionally, should an elected official step out of line that official can be recalled under a charter versus waiting until the next election.
I would say its our petition and no, the petition itself will not stop a data center, but it is a start of a process to potentially block a data center. Under a Statutory framework, there is no path to blocking a data center. To bring it back to the first question, why would you want to sign? Do you wish to have more say in your local government? Would you like to have a direct say more than once every two years? A charter could offer that. The council never campaigned on a data center and yet they want to put one of the biggest in the state right next to a neighborhood and next to township homes that have no say.
There is no statutory timeline for a charter commission petition. The only real time constraints is if someone moves away... so I can't spend a year collecting signatures but I can take a couple months. I need 929 signatures. I will be having multiple signing events and I will try to make every city council event so they can see me collecting signatures.
The petition is for the formation of a Charter Commission which will be empowered to form a charter for the City of Monticello and will modify the city government. Only City of Monticello residents get a say in their form of government. That does not mean township or other city residents' help is not wanted. Even though you can't sign, you can get the word out to your friends that do live in Monticello.
There are 107 cities in Minnesota operating under a Charter. Some have been linked below.
To be truthful, a charter could completely upend our city government. Monticello operates under a weak mayor-council system. A charter could pick one of the other 4 forms of government. It also doesn't have to change anything about our current form of government. The charter could adopt the existing system in place. The LMC handbook goes into pretty good detail on advantages and disadvantages. I am purposely not going to get into the details here because I want you to go read the handbook so you know what you're getting yourself into. I would say my (Ben Anderson's) vision for a charter would be to preserve the existing form of government, but add initiative, referendum, and recall processes. The good thing about a charter is that it is not just a cabal doing what they think is for the good of the community. At the end of the day, 51% of the public needs to approve the charter for it to pass. If the charter commission gets out of hand, or deadlocked, it can be discharged. There is no part of this process, that is permanent, that doesn't go to a public vote.
I would recommend reading the LMC handbook. That is where I got alot of my information besides MN Statue 410. Today it's the data center, tomorrow it could be a council decides that modular reactors next to a residential zone are the new hotness. Hard to say what the future holds, other than the city residents would have a stronger say in it under a charter.
Council gets elected the same way it always has. The Charter Commission does not replace council, it is supplemental to it. It is an additional check on the long-term direction of the city by the public. Since the council and commission do not significantly overlap in responsibilities, the remaining answers will be targeted towards the commission. Once again, I highly encourage you to read the handbook.
Should the petition be certified by the Wright County District Court, the Chief Judge will appoint commission members in accordance with MN 410 and the petition.
I somewhat arbitrarily picked ten. Per MN 410, there can be seven to fifteen. Seven seemed too little, fifteen too many. Ten seemed like a happy round number. Ten people is enough to stir variety of discussion and prevent voting blocks, but low enough to maintain a direction.
Four years.
Develop and maintain the charter. Meet at least once a year. Facilitate public petitions for initiatives, referendums, and recalls.
It depends on the context. At a high level, the council runs the day to day with the administrator, the charter commission manages the framework they operate on. In the case of the data center, while the council continues to work on a regulatory ordinace, the public could petition the charter commission to send a moratorium or ban ordinance on data centers to the council. The hurdle to proposed ordinances is that they must be legal and cannot preempt state law (the public can't all of a sudden eliminate property tax via ordinance).
To help my neighbors. Also because of this and this.
"The supreme quality for leadership is unquestionably integrity." -Dwight D. Eisenhower
"You learn far more from negative leadership than positive leadership. Because you learn how not to do it." - Norman Schwarzkopf
Unlike a datacenter, this construction won't make you want to sell your house.