Words really do matter. That one little word, “may,” that appears in Minnetrista’s 2040 Comprehensive Plan matters a lot. I wrote about it last month here and also outlined several other Comp Plan concerns having to do with a private well ordinance, GreenStep Cities, inflated projected water use, and managing a rebate program for water efficient appliances.
When I saw WSB’s (Minnetrista’s contracted city engineering firm) response to all of these concerns they appeared to take most of them seriously and advised we could remove the private well ordinance, GreenStep Cities option as well as the rebate program from the Comp Plan. They also recalculated the city’s projected water use more accurately. I didn’t understand their response, however, to the “one little word” concern:
Bruce remarks: 2. Page 347: There is an overly broad statement made here that gives the Met Council cart blanche to regulate almost anything they want to in Minnetrista. The word used is “may” in this context: “The City of Minnetrista ….will not permit activity that may conflict with the Metropolitan System Policy Plans.” That word, “may”, tacitly gives the Met Council the right to shut down anything, ANY activity, they think “may conflict with their plans.” They could make golf carts illegal, they could make cars illegal for that matter. The bar is set very low, in fact there is no bar set when you use the word may. I would suggest merely removing that word and changing “conflict” to “conflicts”. They would at least have to prove something conflicts with their plan instead of say something might.
WSB Response: WSB can make the change from “will” to “may” and “conflict” to “conflicts” on page 9-1.
After some back and forth, however, the consensus from most councilmembers was that simply removing the word “may,” as I had earlier suggested, and making “conflict” plural was acceptable. Words matter, especially where our city’s autonomy is concerned.
The Minnetrista 2040 Comprehensive Plan will have these changes made after which it will be sent to the Met Council for approval and then submitted to the city council for final adoption. Minnetrista has until April 2020 to adopt its final 2040 Comprehensive Plan (9 months following Met Council’s initial approval which was July 2019) but it could be adopted much sooner depending on the Met Council’s timeline for approval.
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