Post in City Council Vacancy: Selection Criteria

May 15 06:44 UTC

Vivian makes an interesting point about Karen Schaffer that has been discussed
in political circles in the community.

As far as the unconstitutionality claim goes, nothing I saw seems
unconstitutional to me.

This is why.  Anyone was allowed to apply.  This time, all applicants who
wanted to be interviewed were interviewed (I say this time because Mr. Klausing
has tried to exclude some from interviews in the past without success on
multiple occasions, and Mr. Klausing got a special stipulation put into the HRA
appointment process where he personally can exclude people he doesn't like from
council interviews for that position).

What I read in that Review article was members expressing their preferences or
opinions.  It is their personal opinion, not a policy of the institution.  The
only sticking point would be whether their opinions fell into a protected class
situation and/or maybe whether they tried to institute them as a policy of the
institution.  I don't have the protected class list in front of me at the
moment, but the city attorney went over the list when I served as mayor.  I
believe it included things like gender, race/ethnicity, and I believe age if it
was over a certain number of years, and one or two other things.  I do not
believe I have heard any member make comments that fall into these categories.

As a side comment on the civility comment... from my work on dozens of
campaigns ranging from school board to congress across Minnesota, I find that
when you see civility in a governing body, it is because they had the argument
behind closed doors where they actually decided the vote, then they came out
into the public meeting and all vote unanimously, giving this fake sense of
consensus.  Yes some of this has occurred in Roseville.

Just ask yourself, why is it that most governing bodies that have meetings on
TV, only televise the meetings where they cast the recorded votes.  Then they
create fictional names like study sessions or work sessions for meetings where
issues are discussed, and these meetings are not on TV.  At the legislature,
they call these meetings caucuses, conference committees, or negotiations.

Former city manager Steve Sarkozy called up every council member before a
meeting just to make sure that everyone was on board with every issue.  If
there was a problem, he would take the item off the agenda and deal with it
behind closed doors where the public couldn't see.  During his years it seemed
like a group of best friends at times up there at the dais.

So I guess residents have two choices.  Pretty looking meetings where tough
decisions are made behind closed doors or ugly looking meetings in front of the
public eye.  Sorry but there is little in between, unless you decide to shrink
the size of elected governing bodies down to one person.

What I always find interesting is that those in this community who I have heard
give speeches decrying debate, disagreement, and incivility at council
meetings, are interestingly silent in expressing their opinions about the
legislature.  A $20 billion dollar, yes B as in billion, budget can be passed
on a 68-66 vote in the MN House and they are silent, while they scream at the
top of their lungs if a lousy $30 million, yes m as in only million, budget
isn't passed on a 5-0 vote in Roseville.  Hypocrisy at its best.

John M. Kysylyczyn
K Solutions LLC, owner
3083 Victoria Street
Roseville, MN  55113
email: <email obscured>
home office: (651) 484-1384

www.ksolutionsllc.com
Mayor of Roseville, MN  2000-2004