2008 Hopkins Charter Commission Annual ReportHopkins Charter Commission
Annual Report
2008
The Hopkins Charter Commission met on April 29.
Commission members included:
Jannina Aristy
Dorothy Boen
David Day
Liz Dorn
Roger Gross
Fran Hesch
Karen Jensen
Roger Johnson
Steve Lewis
Jerre Miller
Emily Wallace-Jackson
Commissioner Wallace-Jackson was elected Chair and Commissioner Jensen was elected
Vice-Chair.
The Commission discussed Instant Runoff Elections
The City Clerk gave a brief summary of the Legislative and Rules Committee of the Ranked Choice
Voting Issues Group, which completed the task of developing proposed rules for IRV. The Group
submitted draft legislation to the House and Senate election committees.
Commissioner Hesch reviewed the work of the Ranked Choice Voting Issues Group, Technical
Advisory Committee’s work and hearings that were held regarding RCV. Commissioner Hesch
related the difficulty of convincing the Committee to allow Cities with multiple seat elections to
choose other Ranked Choice methods for their ballots.
In response to the Commission’s request for information at the last meeting, the City Clerk reported
that of the 854 cities in Minnesota, approximately 788 of those cities elect members of their
councils at large with multiple seat elections.
The consensus of the Charter Commission was to continue to research ways to use Ranked Choice
or Instant Runoff Voting in elections where there are multiple candidates running for multiple seats,
as the case would be with the Hopkins City Council.