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City Manager's Report <br />Friday, November 4,2005 <br />Page 8 of 9 <br />• The Council's minutes also demonstrate that the Council knows <br />how to adopt binding, long-term City policies when it wants to. For <br />example, in 2002, the City Council adopted an ordinance limiting <br />the City Manager's purchasing authority to $5,000. Being law, that <br />policy is clearly intended to bind me and future City Managers, at <br />least until a majority � some future City Council were to choose to <br />modify this ordinance. <br />. On rare occasions in the �.990's, the Council did vote on a particular <br />"policy." For example, the first, last, and only time we can find that <br />the City Council voted on something called a T�' policy was Sep- <br />tember 9,1996. This vote was the culmination of several Council <br />discussions that year about T�'. Potential T�' projects were being <br />considered at that time by the Council, and staff wanted direction <br />about those proj ects. In addition, state T�' laws were changing and <br />staff wanted direction on the impact of those changes from the <br />Council's perspective. <br />. To be sure, this Council and previous Councils have talked about <br />T�' on many occasions, both as it relates to specific projects (e.g.� <br />Twin Lakes, Applewood Pointe at Arona, Centerpointe), and as a <br />tool for economic development in general. Remember the special <br />study session this Council requested and staff organized where City <br />assistance for economic development proj ects and for environ- <br />mental clean-up was discussed in general terms by Springsted fi- <br />nancial consultants. T�' was discussed in that study session as an <br />economic development tool. <br />• The informal way these "policies" have been handled suggests <br />these "policies" were never graven in stone. The policy statements <br />seem intended to memorialize then current department practices or <br />understandings which would changed from time-to-time. Some of <br />these "policies" were modified by staff without Council input or <br />vote. Some controversial "policies" - such as the policy relating to <br />T�' - were actually voted on by the City Council. But even on those <br />rare occasions when a Council voted on a policy, it was by Council <br />