City Administrator Martig read this statement during the Northfield City Council meeting on August 22, 2023, prior to the vote authorizing bonding for the 2023 street projects.
Thank you I have prepared some notes myself to address the issue should it come up again this evening. Thank you for the time and opportunity to address these claims. We don’t typically address threatened or actual litigation while it is happening. However, with another step in authorizing financing this evening I wanted to address the legal appropriateness of the financing related to the petition complaint. I look forward to addressing this to the public in greater detail once the financing is completed or litigation is ended.
1. Following a lengthy planning process which involved publicly noticed hearings, the City approved a five-year street reconstruction and overlay plan. The 2023 portion of this plan would be funded by the issuance of street reconstruction and overlay bonds in the amount of $5,300,000.
2. The Council received valuable public input and seriously considered concerns raised by residents regarding certain portions of roadway/sidewalk/bicycle path improvements. The Council, after lengthy public input that exceeded normal project engagement and working with engineers and other advisors, determined that moving forward with the street reconstruction and overlay plan as developed was the best option for enhancing the safety and quality of life for the residents of Northfield now and as the City plans for the future.
3. Some residents who opposed a specific feature of the project sought to require the City hold a special election on the issuance of street reconstruction and overlay bonds for the entire $5.3 million project to reconstruct roads by gathering signatures and submitting a Petition.
- This action would not have had the effect of changing the specific portion of the project that the residents opposed; but it the effect of significantly harming the City’s financing of its entire street reconstruction and overlay projects for 2023.
4. The Petitioners failed to include in the Petition much of the information required under State Rules, including very substantive pieces of information, that are necessary for the City Clerk to verify the Petition for completeness. The City Clerk does not have the authority to arbitrarily grant exceptions from these Rules for certain petitions but not others, especially where the deficiencies in the Petition are serious like they were in this case, so she determined the Petition to be sufficient as she was required to do.
5. Importantly, the City Clerk gave the Petitioners notice of the deficiencies with their Petition within 24 hours of its submission and the Petitioners still had time to correct and resubmit their Petition. However, the Petitioners chose not to correct the deficiencies in their Petition.
6. Similar to all elections the proper procedures and requirements are important to ensure democratic processes are upheld. Ignoring them could have dire consequences.
7. As the Petitioners did not submit a valid petition within that 30 days, and were provided ample notice of that determination, the City moved forward with its project. Again, the Council had carefully considered the interests of all to the community including residents in the project area. Changing the project after the approvals were completed including after the petition received would have created added cost to taxpayers through delays and threatened the legitimacy for future contractors to consider bidding. This is an important consideration among others taken into consideration along with the petition.
8. Now two of the petitioners have threatened to sue the city, even though it has been nearly three months since the City provided its second and final notice to the Petitioners that the Petition was deficient. The City has entered into contracts and the much-needed street reconstruction and overlay work has been under construction for over a month. The only thing the lawsuit would accomplish would be to potentially make financing the entire 2023 street reconstruction and overlay projects more expensive, to the detriment of the city and its taxpayers. The City is prepared to protect the interests of the taxpayers through the process.
9. The Attorney claiming to be representing the petitioners appear to be playing out some broader “inappropriate process” narrative maybe to serve more of a public opinion purpose than a legal one. To be clear, the City did everything legally right in this situation and even above and beyond to take added input and meetings to hear from constituents on this project. Our bond counsel, legal team and financial advisors are fully confident legal support to proceed with the financing this evening and we are prepared to appropriately address any challenge against the funding process and tools used for this project.
10. Thank you Mayor and Council for the opportunity to formally address this important issue.
