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Brainerd City leaders review proposed charter rewrite, spar over utility authority and election timing
Summary
City officials and the Charter Commission met March 26 to review a proposed rewrite of Brainerd City's charter. Debate centered on consolidating infrastructure under one director/Public Utilities Commission authority, removal of language naming city offices, election timing for council primaries and the process for submitting changes; no votes were taken.
Brainerd City Council and the Charter Commission met in a special joint session March 26 to review a proposed revision of the city charter, focusing debate on consolidating infrastructure authority and several wording changes in the document. City Administrator Broyles told the council the packet included three documents — the current charter, a modified red-line mapping, and a clean proposed charter — and that this meeting was the council's first official opportunity to comment.
"I'm not gonna go into a tremendous amount of detail in history," Broyles said, describing staff's approach to mapping each current section to the proposed language and noting the commission and staff would take notes and answer questions. He emphasized the most significant proposed change: "combining all of the infrastructure under one director" so that the entity with operational control of utilities would be set up to propose rates while the council retained budget authority.
Not all council members supported the scope of the…
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