At the April 14 meeting, the Rushford Council tackled a number of agenda items including the ongoing discussion of the codification and publishing of all city ordinances digitally. While five full copies of the ordinances will also be printed for usage at city hall, the hope is that having all ordinances readily available for citizens will end confusion
The agreement with American Legal Publishing includes an in-depth editorial review and organization of existing ordinances, categorizing, renumbering and formatting into a code book, and a legal review for consistency, outdated provisions, and any potential conflicts with state law before a draft even hits city hall’s hands. A draft is expected within seven months.
The base cost of the agreement is $9,975 plus shipping. The city must pay 10% at the time of signing with another 60% due at delivery of the draft. The remaining balance is due upon receipt of the printed code.
The council determined the code should be single column for easier viewing on digital devices. Should changes need to be made later to ordinances or new ordinances added, American Legal Publishing will do the work at a rate of $19 per page for print formatting and $1.95 per page for digital formatting. Additional optional services include a new ordinance list and notification, a comprehensive ordinance list, ordinance history links, definition links, archived versions with a comparison tool, custom website branding, and online meeting minutes.
“Ordinances aren’t changed often. When it’s all said and done, this will be on the city’s website. It’s all there for people to look at,” noted Councilor Jim O’Donnell.
City Administrator Tony Chladek questioned the council on how deep they wanted to go in options. He also noted how important the legal updates are given the age of some of the ordinances. If an ordinance is questionable, it will trigger a legal review. By making the ordinances available digitally, it also makes enforcement easier simply because it’s accessible to people, including law enforcement who might be referencing them.
“It’s relevant to the city,” said Mayor Terri Benson. “Educating our city residents will be a key point in how we market it. We need to educate our citizens on how this should be used.”
The council unanimously approved the base agreement, with online hosting, and to it update as ordinances pass, but approved the city logo as the only branding.
In other news, the city received a work order from Bolton & Menk to provide engineering and surveying services for the Rushford Flood Levee Cross Sectional Survey. The amount is not to exceed $13,450 and is required by the Army Corps of Engineers for the city’s levee system. The cross-section survey was brought up at the corp’s last assessment to see how much settlement there’s been in the waterway areas. Unfortunately, the city will receive no federal or state compensation for the required work. However, the corps will provide engineering for work that will be done on the wall of the levee on the north end, another upcoming project.
“They’ll get at it fairly soon, but how fast we hear back from the corp is another matter,” noted City Clerk Kathy Zacher.
Another unanimously approved council item included the adoption of an ordinance granting Minnesota Energy Resources a non-exclusive franchise to erect and maintain a gas distribution system using the public grounds and public ways of the city. A public hearing was held before general business with no public comment. The city attorney provided several changes to the original language and helped reach agreement and approval with the MN Energy resources legal team. The term of the agreement is for 20 years.
The council also approved a recommendation from the Economic Development Authority regarding the forgiveness of the $80,000 portion of the Loken’s Rushford Inn, LLC and Loken’s Rushford Realty, LLC business subsidy loan. It was noted by members of the EDA that part of the motivation to move this forward is a viable offer to purchase the motel. The EDA recommendation includes a stipulation of 90 days for a purchase agreement, with closing within a year, and forgiveness on the loan portion wouldn’t happen until closing on a purchase agreement. Everything on the initial loan will remain the same.
“It was originally intended to be forgiven. There were some things outside her control,” said EDA member and Councilor Leigh Volkman. “We said we’d forgive it. On that same day, the whole entire amount, plus interest, is being paid back.”
“They pursued them to build a motel here and downtown. We looked at it as getting rid of some of these nagging things. The city is in no different position than we ever were,” continued Volkman. “It’s not setting a precedent. If it sells, she is paying it in full.”
Lastly, during reports, the council reviewed work by the city administrator following discussion in January which suggested a check back in three months. Chladek updated the council on a number of items including ambulance service legislation, the city website updates, the future of city clerk and admin department, and cooperative work with city department heads.
“I was putting heavy pressure on Tony,” said Volkman. “At the same time, I wanted to understand, are we guiding the city administrator in the right direction? He needed to understand we’re supporting what he’s trying to do.”
“I want to say you did a pretty good job getting some of these things addressed,” he continued. “There’s reasons people are going to think there’s micromanagement. It’s communication. The only way to break that is to talk about things a little bit better.”