The Crookston City Council met on Monday night. They were unable to appoint Chris Plante to the City Council to represent Ward 6 despite a majority (4 to 2) voting in favor of the appointment. Councilmen Clayton Briggs and Don Cavalier voted against the appointment. The City of Crookston Charter states five votes are required to appoint someone to the council, which became an issue with two elected positions, Mayor and Ward 6, currently open. Because Dale Stainbrook (Ward 5) is acting as Mayor, he did not get a vote on the resolution as the mayor only votes in the case of a tied vote.
Ward 6 resident Blake Royal spoke to the council before the vote during the open Crookston Forum, urging them to appoint someone to the position Monday night. After the meeting, Royal said he was disappointed and said he’s not sure if a future issue comes up that needs the vote of five members whether the current group can resolve that issue. “I’m just disappointed,” said Royal. “Beyond the council member getting appointed tonight, which I thought they should do, if we have an issue tomorrow that needs five council members, I’m not sure that these guys can make it happen. The city is at a standstill. And if you’re looking to come to town and run a business, is this the community that you want to come to when the council can’t get together, come to an agreement, and do what’s best for the city. It’s just disappointing.”
On September 30, an interview committee made up of the current elected officials, and several members of Ward 6 settled on Plante as the candidate for appointment. That night both Cavalier and Briggs weren’t in favor of appointing Plante, but after about 90 minutes of deliberation, Briggs said it was a tough decision, but he was willing to vote for Plante. On October 14, Briggs made a motion to table the vote, before saying of his no vote Monday that he was doing what the residents wanted. Several members of the council called the vote disappointing and suggested that to do what was right for the City of Crookston, either Briggs or Cavalier should’ve changed their vote. Cavalier, who never showed support for appointing Plante, said that it wasn’t up to him to change his vote and that he voted his conscience. “They tried to say it was up to me to change my vote, and I said no, it’s not,” said Cavalier. “I vote my conscience, and I need to vote on who I think can do the job. And I didn’t change my vote because of that.”
City Attorney Corky Reynolds joined the discussion and told the council he’ll have to do some research into the avenues available in the charter regarding holding a special election, and the process for changing the charter as an option as well. Councilman Steve Erickson asked what the cost of a special election would be, and City of Crookston Finance Director Angel Weasner said a regular election is $20,000. And she could see a special election costing $30,000.
The other option is to change the City of Crookston Charter, which would require a change presented by the Charter Commission. Whether or not that change would need to be approved by the City Council, and if so with how many votes, was unknown during the meeting. A review of the city charter states under Section 11.11, “The Council shall by ordinance, resolution or other appropriate action take such steps, if any, as may be necessary to make effective the provisions of this Charter.” The charter also states under Section 3.05, “Expect as otherwise provided in this charter, all legislation shall be by ordinance. The votes of Council Members on any action taken shall be recorded in accordance with statute. Except as otherwise provided in this Charter, an affirmative vote of five Council Members, or four Council Members and the Mayor or the Assistant Mayor in the event of a tie, shall be required for the adoption of all ordinances and resolutions.” The need for the five votes on any change to the charter, or any resolution, ordinance, or motion could render the council incapable of serving the residents of Crookston on essential issues moving forward.
Another issue is that the Charter Commission seats twelve individuals. Three current members are up for renewal of their terms, which hasn’t been put on an agenda yet. Additionally, three open seats were to be filled by former Mayor Guy Martin, which, since his resignation, has fallen on Stainbrook to fill. Stainbrook said he thinks he has one of the three openings filled, which would bring the commission to ten of twelve members. “It’s a group of twelve people,” said Stainbrook. “I’ve got nine people, now I possibly have ten, so I need two more. I’ve got some feelers out there to get back to me. I’d as soon make sure we have twelve and need seven for a quorum. It’s a rush situation now because usually, we meet on the first Monday in December. So, I’m going to get on this, and hopefully, we have twelve on the board, and twelve show up when we do have the charter meeting.”
The City Council will hold a special meeting on Monday, November 4, to appoint the charter commission members. Stainbrook said he hopes that resolution will pass, and a charter commission meeting can be held next week. “It’s a struggle,” said Stainbrook. “I guess right now we’re going to have a resolution Monday and get this charter [commission] together. Hopefully, in the middle of next week or the end of next week, we can have a charter commission meeting and go through the charter. Someone commented that the charter is twenty years old, maybe it needs to be fine-tuned a little bit and make some changes, so we’re not into this situation.”
Fee said the result Monday night was extremely disappointing and that it now looks like it could cost the City of Crookston several thousand dollars to sort everything out with the charter and fill vacant seats. “It’s extremely disappointing, especially for the citizens of Crookston,” said Fee. “We went through the process to do this that we agreed upon. The majority of the council was there ready to seat Chris Plante into that seat. But we’ve got a couple of obstructionists who are going to stand in the way of the process and not allow us to seat him. So, now we’re going to have to look at either changing the charter or possibly having a special election. I think a lot of people are in favor of a special election, but what it boils down to is by the time you’re said and done, you’re probably about $30,000 plus to our taxpayers. We didn’t feel like that is a wise expenditure we should do, but it is something we’re going to look at. Now with a failure to seat because of Don [Cavalier] and Clayton [Briggs], we’re probably going to be looking at several thousands of dollars in legal fees to sort this out. It’s a pretty disappointing night that we couldn’t do our job as a city council.”
The result of Monday night’s failure to appoint a council member could not only cost the City of Crookston a significant amount of money to resolve but could mean the currently vacant seats won’t be filled until sometime in 2020. Stainbrook said he didn’t know what the timeline would be, but that it would likely be dragged out for some time, which he doesn’t like. “It’s going to take some time,” said Stainbrook. “I don’t know what the timeline is. I don’t know what the cost is of having an election. The bummer is – are we going to going to be into 2020 when this gets all said and done. I’m hearing tonight it’s possible that once you approve the charter, it has to be approved by the citizens of Crookston. I don’t know, but it is what I’m hearing. We’ll ask our city attorney and go through the charter and see what it entails. It could be dragged out for some time, and I don’t like it.”
Fee said the most disappointing aspect would be the cost incurred spending taxpayer money on something that he says should never have occurred. “That’s the biggest disappointment through this process,” said Fee. “We’re going to have to look at both [options] side by side as we’re moving forward here. Every day we’re going to be spending taxpayer money on something that in our opinion, shouldn’t have occurred, but that’s what we’re in. One way or another, whether it’s a change of the charter or a special election, we’re probably looking at six, seven, eight months, and tens of thousands of dollars of legal fees before this is over.”
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