Did Vicki Oakes remove the link to City Council Minutes?

Did Vicki Oakes remove the link on the city website for City Council Minutes? In the past when you came to the minutes on the City of Ortonville you had the option to look at all the minutes from 2001 to the present. Now, when you go to the city site you can only see 2007, 2008, 2009. See here.

I had noticed some time ago that the other years had been removed. Now people could not view the past minutes. At least you can't get there from Ortonville's website. While doing a google search one day I came across them. They still exist on the internet but there is no link to get to them. Until now. Click here for Ortonville minutes 2001 - 2006

The minutes of the Ortonville City Council for the years 2001 through 2006 are not linked from the city website. Why?

To be honest I didn't say anything before about this because I was afraid that if I mentioned that you could still access the past City of Ortonville minutes they might disappear from the internet. I have had so many links disappear or web pages disappear when I mention them that I am cautious.

Looking at the past minutes you can see a vast difference in style. In the previous years the resolutions were written right into the minutes. Former City Administrator Char Grossman included the resolution in it's entirety in the minutes. You can click on the link above to see in the minutes through 2006 that resolutions were listed in the minutes of the meeting. Not just summaries. Look at the link above at the minutes for 2008 and 2009 and see that they only mention the name of the resolution but one wonders if the way it is worded is it the entire resolution or a summary? For instance if you click on the minutes for Nov 16, 2009 you will find that not only are the minutes in reverse order, i.e. page 4, 3, 2, 1 (The minutes pages being backward is not a complaint on my part. I am just grateful they aren't sideways.) but the resolution is not very descriptive for 09-143. See here.


a. EDA Board Recommendation: Resolution Approving Transfer of Tax Forfeited
Property to the Ortonville Economic Development Authority
Motion by Powell second by Berkner to adopt Resolution 09-143 Approving Transfer
of Tax Forfeited Property to the Ortonville Economic Development Authority.
Upon Roll Call vote the following voted Aye: Johnson, Anderson, Powell, Dorry,
Meyer, Randleman, Berkner. Nay: None.
All in favor. 7-0. MCU.

What property are they talking about? Is it a general rule for every forfeited property in the future or are they talking about a specific property?


Also take a look at the index for 2001 through 2006 and you will notice that the bottom half of the page is all the resolutions. This is very helpful in that it llinks you to the city council meeting minutes where that resolution was voted on. The way that David Lang and Vicki Oakes now have the index set up you have to go in and out of every single city council meeting minutes looking for the resolutions. Even then, are they written in their entirety so that you can read city resolutions in their entirety on the internet?

On the index for 2009 it states that minutes are "generally" put up after they have been approved. Oh, really? I have seen them take months to show up. A case in point. Notice on the 2009 index where the minutes for May 27, June 1 and 15. They aren't there. More missing minutes? (Do you suppose they ran off with the missing EDA minutes for January 10 2008?) Since these minutes are not up does that mean that the City Council has not approved the minutes for May 27, June 1 and 15 of 2009?