To The Editor:

I read with disappointment your January 18th article which stated the Hastings city council passed a resolution pertaining to the conflict in the Middle East between Israel and Gaza.

Our city council is a nonpartisan public body which should only deal with nonpartisan civic issues. Resolutions such as the one above fall outside council civic matters, entering the political arena.

Our city council, being nonpartisan needs to work with both sides of the aisle with our legislature and U S Congress. Those bodies are political and are put in place to deal with items of national and international importance.

A nonpartisan city council, which by our city charter, is to operate within the scope of local civic issues, not national and international situations.

A city council such as Hastings’ jeopardizes its neutral status with our partisan political bodies. It may be looked upon unfavorably by those bodies when it comes time to seek funding at the local level if resolutions outside the scope of the council’s duties rub those political bodies the wrong way.

There is a huge difference between being civic-minded and politically-minded. My Google search found no other nonpartisan city councils in Minnesota have passed any policy resolutions on the above resolution, even though that was implied in an article in the Minneapolis Star Tribune.

The city council needs to recognize, as well, that they may not be speaking for all the voters of Hastings on resolutions such as the one referred to above. That becomes irresponsible when issues like this come to the fore.

As a civic body the Hastings City council needs to stay within the bounds of local civic issues. As examples, those include funding for our new bridge, street construction and renovation of Hwy 316, redesign and construction of Vermillion Street/Hwy 61, a new roof for our hockey arenas and the COVID crisis, all requiring assistance from the Minnesota Legislature and the U S Congress. If a resolution, any resolution, is referred to our political officials which they might respond to differently, it then becomes more complicated to get what the city needs.

As a member of the Hastings City Council for twelve years I found great satisfaction and comfort to have political leaders from both sides of the aisle, such as U S Senator Klobuchar, U S Representative Angie Craig, former State Representative Tony Jurgens, State Representative Shane Hudella and former State Representative Denny MacNamara all working with the City of Hastings in bipartisan exercises that dealt with Hastings’ civic issues.

I urge the City Council of Hastings as well as all nonpartisan city councils to deal only with civic issues, following the guidelines of your city charter, and state statutes, and stay far away from political issues which potentially can open a can of worms.

Sincerely,

Joe Balsanek
Hastings City Council Member Emeritus