St. Cloud Council, Mayor Clash Over Rules, City Charter

ST. CLOUD - St. Cloud City Council members and the Mayor clashed on a couple of issues during Monday night's meeting.

The first was the topic of revisions to the council's rules of order. During their work study session last week the council decided to have a subcommittee of three members work on changes. They met two times during the week and began to present their proposals of changes to the full council. Council member Jeff Johnson had an issue with not seeing the list of changes prior to the meeting.

[Hontos] We're just going to put it on the agenda next meeting for old business?  [Johnson] Fine by me because I'd like to discuss this with my constituents that voted me into office in the 4th Ward. [Hontos] You have that chance right now.  We're presenting changes. You don't even know what you're going to talk to them about until you see the changes.

The plan was to just present the changes to the full council, but not vote on them. However, in the end, the council voted to table the discussion.

Then, during the open discussion, the issue of the city's charter came up in relation to the mayor's veto of the tobacco buying age change. Council member George Hontos says there should have been a more formal veto announcement.

First of all, this isn't a testimony about your (Kleis) transparency. We're not talking about transparency.  We're talking about formal action.  You cannot veto an action before the city council President signs off on an ordinance.

Mayor Dave Kleis announced during the meeting when the ordinance passed that he planned to veto the measure, however, the formal signing of the veto actually took place the following day. Once the mayor formally vetoes an ordinance the city council has a time limit for when they can try to override it.

During Monday night's meeting, the city council asked the Charter Commission to review the process that needs to take place when a mayor makes a veto.

Mayor Kleis has only vetoed one other ordinance in his time as mayor.