The Hopkins City Charter

Editor's Note: This is the third part of a Civics 101 series that examines the structure of Hopkins' government and the roles of its officials. The first installment of this series looked at the , and the second detailed .

City charters are often compared to the Constitution: They are the legal framework that establishes the government.

A charter is a much-more technical document, though. Hopkins’ charter has no preamble with big ideas, no soaring language. Its nearly 11,000 words—more than twice as long as the original U.S. Constitution, although still about 1,000 words shy of the state constitution— focus squarely on city business.

It has guided the city since residents adopted it Dec. 2, 1947, but not without change. Residents have amended the charter about a dozen times since its creation, most recently in 2009. The ’90s were a particularly fluid period. The charter changed six times in those 10 years.

Here’s an overview of what the charter does:

Describes Hopkins: The very first part of the charter specifies the city’s name—“City of Hopkins,” a change from the prior “Village of Hopkins— and its boundaries. City ordinances have enlarged the boundaries since the charter was drafted.

Details the city’s governance powers: Specifically, it states that Hopkins has all self-government powers allowed under the state constitution and state law.

The framers didn’t leave anything to chance. The authority includes “all powers which shall be necessary to preserve, promote, advance and protect the health, safety and general welfare of persons, and preserve and protect property”— take a breath—and “to levy taxes and to borrow money and issue and negotiate bonds or other instruments evidencing indebtedness; to enter into contracts, to purchase, exchange, develop, operate, improve, lease, barter or sell any property.”

That’s a mouthful, and the charter goes on to emphasize that it should be interpreted “liberally in favor of the City” and, again, that the city has “all powers necessary or convenient” to efficiently conduct city business.

Sections about specific city functions detail further powers, such as enforcing the city plan or creating codes for businesses and buildings.

Establishes the city’s structure and form of government: As Patch detailed over the past couple weeks, the charter requires Hopkins to:

• Use a ,  
• Have a council made up of a mayor and four council members, all elected at large,
• Fill certain positions.

Specifies duties for city officials: The charter spells out the duties for the mayor, council and city manager in great depth, with less detail for the city clerk and city attorney. You can read more about these duties .

Limits certain powers for officials: While the charter’s opening language seems to give expansive authority to the city—constrained, of course, by superseding state authority—it also spells out certain limits for city officials. For example, council can’t interfere with city administration. But the council, not the city manager, has full control over the city’s financial affairs.

Perhaps the biggest limit is that Hopkins residents reserve the right to pass ordinances, vote on existing ordinances and recall elected officials through initiatives, referendums and recall, respectively.

Specifies procedures: Many of the procedures the city uses for its day-to-day business are laid out in the charter, including:

• Council ordinances, resolutions and motions,
• Elections,
• Initiatives, referendums and recall,
• The budget,
• Tax collections,
• Property acquisition,
• Bonding
• Utilities.

Regulates city finance: Six of the charter’s 30 pages cover city finances. That’s more time than the charter spends on the mayor and council and more time than it spends on the city manager—especially when you throw in finance provisions scattered outside the part of the charter dedicated to city money.