…at least 43%…
…maybe.
Tomorrow (December 17th) night at the City Council Meeting, Mr. William J. Everett will present his report to the Council. Mr. Everett was hired by the Council some months ago to investigate the Select Six items from the original Fourteen Issues.
The Select Six included possible: 1) improper influence or action in the municipal liquor store site search, 2) observance of proper boundaries by City officials or staff, 3) improper actions in the issuance or termination of a temporary certificate of occupancy for 618 Division Street, 4) failure to document or address complaints or questions regarding personnel matters, 10) misuse of public funds, and 11) any other issues that merit examination. The Select Six represent 43% of the Fourteen Issues, and were going to be categorized by “Clusters” for exploration by Mr. Everett.
The Leftover Eight, questions potentially relating to: 5) roles, responsibility and respect between City officials and employees, 6) adherence to municipal contracting laws, 7) violation of the Minnesota government data practices act, #8 separation of church and state, 9) proper oversight and management of TIF projects, 12) violations of the open meeting law, 13) municipal, state and federal purchasing policies, and 14) deviations from the City’s pay plan, will be addressed in the future. Some of these issues may or may not be part of the investigation currently being conducted in Goodhue County; in fact only item #8 was specifically ruled out as being part of the Goodhue County investigation at the special Council Meeting on November 1st. Items 7) and 12) are also key elements of the Lansing lawsuit. Perhaps by next Spring we’ll even know who gave the Council Packet to the Northfield News.
However, the topic is the last item on the agenda and the Vikings are playing the Bears on Monday Night Football so, hopefully for the local economy, there will be bigger crowds at the Rueb and the Eagles. We can always get the full, if somewhat subjective, report at Blue Monday or the Hideaway in the morning.
Ross, the agenda item regarding Everett and Greene’s report to the city isn’t clear to me. Will Everett give an verbal presentation? Who gets the report handed to them? Will it be available to the public tonight?
Check out item #10 from the agenda:
http://www.ci.northfield.mn.us/assets/1/121707.pdf
Curt, yeah, you and me both…
…if I were a gambling man, I would bet that there will be a formal presentation of the report document to the Mayor and the Council, a very circumspect verbal statement by Mr. Everett, and, depending on the meaning of the phrase “to be handed out” that the report may have to be reviewed by the City Attorney before being released to the public or, at the very least, the Mayor and the Council would be hard-pressed to ask many questions or make many comments on something that they have just received…
…but I could be wrong.
There may be further complications if the Everett Clusters expanded beyond the Select Six (items 1, 2, 3, 4, 10 and 11) into other items on the List of Fourteen that may or may not be related to the Goodhue County Investigation (maybe items 5, 6, 9, 13 and 14, but apparently not 8) or the Lansing Family Lawsuit (items 7 and 12)…
…but I am not an attorney.
Then again, the report might magically appear at the Northfield News and be transformed into a story shaped by their particular perspective and peppered with selective excerpts…
…but I may be just a touch cynical about it all.
Mr. Everett will provide a summary of the report and the report will be handed out to the Council and the public at the same time. Nobody will see the report before agenda item #10.
Hey, why no discussion item about the two controversial articles in the paper on Saturday?
I alerted people to those two articles earlier in the day on Monday, Scott. But I didn’t have much of a hankering to discuss them because I had a lot going on over the weekend. As it turns out, it’s just as well, since the Everett report appears to validate much of what the paper has been critical of the mayor about.