07-20-2020 Planning Commission Minutes

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MINUTES OF THE ORONO PLANNING COMMISSION Monday,July 20,2020 6:00 o'clock p.m. City, perhaps they do not need a place because of the existence of the other authorities that will have final decisions in that regard. He concurs with the attorney's opinion that it does not have any pertinence in the City's language and easily redacted without causation to the City's governance. McCutcheon said he hoped the language did not need to be at the City level and he would trust the City Attorney. He is fine with striking the language. Mayor Dennis Walsh, 1354 Rest Point Circle, said the City Council deals with language being redundant or putting in specific language but then they say they should refer to the Minnesota Fire Code rather than creating its own code because the City's code would be static and other codes are constantly morphing such as the CFPB. As he looks at this issue, it is more of a legal argument than anything else,and the legal argument is there whether the language is/is not included. It is similar to all the other federal, state, and criminal statutes being there whether the City references them or not. The City Council has taken the approach as much as possible to say, "If we don't need it there, we always have it"as opposed to someone saying, "Oh,they have the language so I can't do fraud." He noted fraud is not permitted no matter what. He appreciates wanting the language included, but the question is where do you end it. The City Council is always trying to make things as simple as possible,knowing the protections are there and a lot of codes can be referenced. Gettman stated at the federal level the Bureau is actually not responsible for taking any action other than reporting. At the state level,the Consumer Affairs division is very similar. Most often they direct a citizen to hire a lawyer on their own. He asked if the City had an obligation to start to drive the process and asked why the City would not promote the fact that a particular contractor/vendor is doing this bad action the City wants to capture and then listing the references for which they are capturing it. He agrees the language is not adding anything, but he would want to add language that the City plans to help its citizens with an issue. Mayor Walsh said he talked to the City Attorney; and some cities say, "Here's our plumbing recommended contractors,"which cannot be done. Gettman clarified that contractors would not be recommended; rather,there would be a list of contractors the City would not recommend. Mayor Walsh stated that could also be a problem. Gettman noted it would not be a problem to do that if the contractors are violating statutes or rules. Mayor Walsh said violating is sometimes in the eye of the beholder because it still has to go to court and someone has to be prosecuted.The steps will always be there, no matter what. He stated the Council also wrestles with this type of thing and he is not saying how the Planning Commission should vote. There will always be ancillary arguments about what more could be done as a City,what is or is not appropriate, who would tell that to somebody and who wouldn't. He noted there are plenty of bad actors in the City that do things from time to time; and the question is,when do you start telling people they have done things that aren't good. They always have to come in for a permit and it's always the City's job to oversee them. He said they have found things in the code that reference specific things that are completely different now, so they will just reference the Fire Code because it constantly changes. They had the book of codes from 20 years ago, and the additions were bigger than the book. Something would get changed and then it would get changed again, and it was hard to find the current code and they had to condense a Page 8 of 19