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D. Budgeting All cities must budget, and there are many technical requirements pertaining to city budgets. Cities have limited revenue streams coupled with annually growing expenditures. Cities have reporting requirements, publishing requirements, expenditure restrictions, funding obligations to fulfill, and often a requirement that citizens be allowed to participate in the budgeting process. And once again, council should rely on staff to help meet these requirements. But for the policy makers, budgeting is a critical annual exercise. One thing the mayor was elected to do is to think about the city's goals and how to advance them. At budgeting time every year, the mayor can help focus council's discussion with the following sorts of questions: • What does the city need and what are its goals? • What can realistically be done about those goals and needs this year? • What are the costs of the various options? • How much does the city have and how will the city use its resources to fund the goals identified? Having goals is always the city's starting point. From there, with a mayor's leadership, a city council can work with what funds it has, choose what it will fund, determine how much it will need, and thereby optimally manage citizen expectations and tax dollars. E. Land use Minn. stat. §§ 462.351 to Land use encompasses many legal areas, which are not easily described 462.365. concisely, but it amounts to enormous power for cities. The Municipal Planning Act gives cities the authority to regulate how land is used. It is only through uniform procedures set by these statutes that the city council decides where residences are allowed, approves proposed developments, and determines every regulation of land use that best serves a city's own "comprehensive plan." Equally important to passing land use ordinances as a legislative body is the council's responsibility to apply those ordinances —much like a court — when a certain use of land is proposed to council. Most areas of land use law are uniform to all cities and dictated by state law. One area of land use that may differ from city to city is its regulation of public nuisances. When a use of land interferes with the enjoyment of those nearby, it may be a public nuisance. If it is, ideally council has enacted a nuisance ordinance to address such situations through removal, otherwise called abatement. Minnesota Mayors Chapter 1-13 Association