Opaque Transparency
This week
Wright County Administrator Resigns
On Wednesday, the Wright County Board of Commissioners held a special meeting to accept the resignation of the Wright County Administrator, Lee R. Kelly. Mr. Kelly has been the County Administrator for over 5 years. Prior to that, he held the role of the County Coordinator before Wright County had moved to an Administrator model. He was the County Coordinator for 6 years, after the prior coordinator left with more than 30 years in the role. Overall, Mr. Kelly started with Wright County in 2009.
Last week, the Board of Commissioners voted to place Mr. Kelly on paid administrative leave following a closed session to review his performance. The reasons for placing him on leave are not clear, as the Board did not state a summary of the results of the closed meeting as is required under Minnesota Open Meeting Law. I have submitted a request to the Minnesota Department of Administration Data Practices Division for an Advisory Opinion on the potential Open Meeting Law violations by the Wright County Board of Commissioners.
An Advisory Opinion on the matter wouldn't do much except inform the County that they failed to follow Open Meeting Law and to not do so going forward. Individual Commissioners may be held accountable for repeated intentional violations of Open Meeting Law - with the Minnesota Supreme Court holding that three separate violations could result in removal from office.
I also submitted a Records Request to the County for the recording of the Closed Meeting, which is a requirement under MN § 13D.05 Subd. 1.
City Council Meeting
The City Council met on Monday as part of its regular meeting. The agenda for this meeting included Costco, and the EDA Commissioners pay. I also requested that an item be added to the agenda to discuss the removal of City Council meetings from the city YouTube page.
The Costco discussion was brief. Unfortunately, the prior meeting that discussed Costco is no longer available online for residents to view that conversation. However, what I said in that meeting was summarized in my newsletter after the meeting.
At the time, I was surprised to see that there's really very little information on traffic in our packet. During this meeting, there was even less. This is even after the issue was raised at the Planning Commission, public hearing, and by the City Council. What is especially surprising about this is that the prior applicant of this parcel - Love's Truck Stop - had to complete a traffic study, and would have been required to conduct millions of dollars of road improvements to accommodate the traffic.
It's also clear that Costco has done their own analysis. At the prior Planning Commission meeting, they pointed out that typical traffic studies that follow the Institute of Transportation Engineers standards will tend to underestimate how much traffic a Costco can generate. They prefer to do their own analysis to provide cities with a better understanding of the impact. That's great - but it wasn't provided to the public or the Council in order for us to make an informed decision.
The issue of City Council meetings being removed from the city YouTube page was also discussed. Over three years of City Council meetings were removed, with the reasoning for this being compliance with the records retention and data practices schedule.
For reference, that schedule can be found at the Minnesota Clerks and Financial Officers Association website, here. Audio and video recordings for non-closed meetings are required to be kept for at least 3 months after the minutes for the meeting are approved (ADM 05950). Meeting minutes are generally approved at the meeting following the meeting for which the minutes are generated. For example, the meeting of March 25th had meeting minutes approved on April 8th.
That could mean the retention of that meeting would be required to be held until at least July 8th. This is the only record schedule that references a time frame in relation to the approval of minutes, so it's unclear if the "3 month clock" starts after the minutes are approved, or from the meeting date once the minutes are approved. The March 25th meeting was removed on or around July 5th.
What seems obvious to me is that retention does not imply deletion. The top of the schedule states: "The retention cited is the minimum amount of the time a record must be kept" (emphasis added). Therefore, the question then becomes: does removing the audio/visual record of City Council meetings increase transparency, or decrease transparency? I listed a sampling of cities that have years of council meetings online, with some cities having over 10 years available. Why should the citizens of those cities have the advantage of reviewing the history of their council meetings while the residents of Otsego cannot? Some of the decisions of a city council could be relevant for years, and new residents moving to the city should be able to see and hear the deliberations of the Council.
It's not an issue of cost. YouTube doesn't charge for uploads or storage. There's currently no limit to the number of videos that a city could upload. Some of the cities that have YouTube pages also upload other meetings, and informational videos - totaling hundreds of videos for residents. Wright County has over 8 years of meetings on YouTube.
Some cities benefit from having a local cable channel that they are able to utilize to store videos on-demand. Cities like Ramsey and Elk River have 8 years of meetings through their local cable channels. Yet there are other cities that actually pay for storage through providers that enable transcription and interactive agendas. Orono has 10 years on their old provider and has kept all the videos for this year on their new online provider. The City of Mankato uses the same platform and has 9 years of meetings.
The City of Shakopee utilizes all three options: with 12 years of meetings on YouTube, online in their paid platform, and also on their local cable TV channel.
It simply makes no sense to remove these records. It makes it look like we're hiding something. The videos should be kept on YouTube for as long as YouTube allows.
I have a lot of the older meetings saved locally, and have decided to upload them to an archive channel on YouTube for citizens to view. It will take some time to upload them all. I will also add the newer videos before they are deleted so that citizens can have a place to go back and watch meetings after they have been removed from the official city page.
Archive of Otsego City Council Meetings - YouTube
Public Safety Commission Joint Meeting with City Council
On Tuesday, the Public Safety Commission held a joint meeting with the City Council to tour the NorthStar Regional treatment facility. One of the benefits of being an elected official is getting invited on these kinds of tours to see how businesses and utilities in the area operate, and I am often impressed with what our community has to offer. This tour was no exception: I made some assumptions about what facility does and I was happy to be corrected.
When I heard "treatment facility", I pictured a place where people were involuntarily placed to go through detox and held against their wishes by court order to get off drugs. I also assumed that anyone who was off the premises was maybe kicked out or wasn't supposed to leave. But that isn't the case at all.
First, the facility doesn't do any detox - that's handled at another facility or at a hospital. If anyone arrives at the facility that still needs to go through detox, they will be transported. Second, no one is there against their will. The clients are allowed to stop treatment at any time, and if they do so there's a plan for them to leave including transportation and contact information... they aren't just kicked out onto the street. Finally, there are two separate parts of the facility: the live-in inpatient treatment, and outpatient with lodging. When a client first arrives, they will stay on the inpatient side for around 4-6 weeks and receive regular individual and group counseling. Those going through this portion of the treatment don't leave the grounds - and are still free to stop treatment and leave the facility. After they have completed treatment on that side, they can move to the other side of the facility for up to around 6 months with lodging and intensive outpatient therapy. Overall, there's around 100 clients, with roughly 80 of those being on the outpatient lodging side.
Clients go through therapy and counseling to learn better self-reliance, emotional management, and living in a community. They don't just learn how to deal with the effects of drug abuse, they also learn how to live a meaningful and productive life to address the issues that may have led to the drugs in the first place. And it's not just illicit drugs that they may need treatment for, it's also alcohol abuse, and mental therapy.
On the lodging side, clients can sign out to leave and have a curfew of 10pm. Local businesses work with the facility to hire clients trying to get back on their feet and will even provide transportation for them to and from their jobs. NorthStar Regional also works to find permanent housing and medical care after the clients leave the facility.
Like so many others - including even some of the Commissioners that took the tour - I have had friends affected by drug and alcohol abuse. I lost a friend to a drug overdose that had so much of her life ahead of her. Even with that experience, it can be easy to slip into the mindset of ignoring the reality that these things happen, and to pretend like a large portion of society is not in dire straits. It's good to know that those who want to get help have a place they can go to receive the level of care they need to get their life back on track.
As we were leaving, a young man came running up to the counselor that was giving us the tour. He had just received his 6 month graduation gold coin. He held it out in front of him and motioned for me and others to examine it. He was happy, and he was proud. I don't know the young man, yet I couldn't help but feel a sense of pride for him as well.
NorthStar Regional accepts donations of clothing, bikes, games and other items that could help clients during their stay.
Next Week
Planning Commission Meeting
The Planning Commission will meet on Monday at 7pm at Prairie Center with one item on the main agenda: a public hearing for Quadriga Ventures/JMS with a Comprehensive Plan Amendment. The Commission will consider changing the property from low-to-medium density, to medium-to-high density residential.
Parks and Recreation Commission Joint Meeting with City Council
On Tuesday at 7pm at Prairie Center, the Parks and Recreation Commission will host a joint meeting with the City Council in order to review the Prairie Park Master Plan. A draft of the plan includes the following phases, with a rough estimate of 5-10 years for both of the phases:
Phase 1 (Estimated at $6,716,883)
New Adventure Playground
New Park Building/Pavilion with accessible restrooms, multi-purpose recreation
and event space, and concessions area
Shade and drinking fountains to support the playground
Veterans memorial relocation and upgrade
Parking lot repaving and expansion
Stormwater allowance and trees
Phase 2 (Estimated at $9,556,434)
Ballfield updates
New warming house/restrooms/concessions building
New hockey rink and free skate area
New parking lots west of the ballfields
New off-leash dog park, parking, shelter, RC Track, and Archery area
Relocated sledding hill in SW area of park
Basketball court resurfacing
Soccer field parking lots and lighting
Public Works Subcommittee Meeting
The Public Works Subcommittee will meet next week to discuss several public works items. On the agenda for this meeting are the following topics:
East WWTF Review Quotes for Pump Replacement
West WWTF Review Change Orders
Review Project Estimate for Storm Water Pond Outlet
Review Draft Capital Improvement Plan for Pavement Management
Cold Storage Facility update