No candidates will be up for re-election on the New Brighton City Council this November after a judge weighed in on a lawsuit filed against the city by a current council member.
In a ruling issued last month, Ramsey County District Judge Lezlie Ott Marek found the city erred when it adopted an ordinance last fall that changed the timing of the city’s general elections from odd years to even years.
The ordinance was to take effect this year, with two seats on the New Brighton City Council slated to appear on the ballot in November.
The local election would otherwise have been held in 2017.
The judge’s decision rendered the ordinance invalid, thus canceling the city’s plans to hold its general election alongside all the other state and federal seats up for votes this fall.
The course of events was set into motion when current city council member Gina Bauman filed a lawsuit against the city along with another New Brighton resident. Both her seat and council member Brian Strub’s would have been up for re-election in November under the new ordinance.
The suit alleged that the city’s adoption of the election ordinance was unlawful because it did not follow the timeline laid out in state statute, which says such a change must be made by June in the year before the affected election.
The New Brighton City Council adopted the ordinance last November. Bauman voted against its adoption, which in effect would have shortened the term of the city’s current city council members by one year and lengthened the mayor’s by a year.
Bauman’s suit also alleged the city was wrong when it refused to accept a petition she submitted in May that sought to put the election ordinance up for a public referendum.
Daniel Reiff, the attorney who represented Bauman in the suit, said the plaintiffs welcomed the judge’s ruling.
“The judge found that Gina and (the other resident) were right on every issue and the city was wrong on every issue, so yeah, we were pleased,” Reiff said.
The city is now weighing its next legal options, said Mayor Val Johnson.
“We are obviously disappointed in the ruling and we are considering an appeal,” Johnson said.
The city voted to change the election cycle so that it would coincide with most other general elections, with the aim of increasing voter turnout, Johnson said.
“There are 840 some cities in Minnesota and there are something like 24 to 28 … that have odd-year elections,” Johnson said. “The purpose here was solely to hear more of the people’s voice, and more people vote in an even election year.”
Johnson added that she was not on the council at the time the ordinance was approved.
She said she wasn’t sure if the city would revisit changing New Brighton’s election calendar.
“I don’t know, and it’s not something we’ve discussed yet,” Johnson said.