Bemidji City Council Code of Conduct Close to Drafting Phase

Bemidji’s city council is one step closer to drafting their code of conduct.

After being tasked by the Charter Commission to make a code of conduct, the council worked with the League of Minnesota Cities to begin the process. At July 10th’s meeting, the league provided the council with examples of codes from other Minnesota cities, including Mankato, Austin, Duluth, and Edina.

The council agreed on many of the topics discussed at the meeting such as directing city staff and how to act during meetings. They also talked about the best way to manage and maintain the code of conduct once drafted.

“If we can put all of [the code] into one place, that helps people to understand the role and why,” said Ward 4 Councilor Emelie Rivera. “And there’s plenty of wording in the charter that can just be pulled and put in here. I don’t think it’s a bad thing to centralize this into a summary.”

“Brevity is something that I’m searching for here simply because I realize there’s a lot of different ideas and expectation among the council as to what this should be,” said Mayor Jorge Prince. “So if we’re going to come together on the things we agree upon, I think something more brief speaks to that … If you can get agreement on the basic content … in the future, you could develop that further if needed.”

City staff will now take what the council agreed on during the meeting and make a first draft of the code. The city attorney did recommend for the council to make this code a resolution instead of an ordinance.