Vision
Our vision for the City of Hutchinson is that we will continue to be an involved, progressive, and innovative community that promotes our regional prominence while preserving our hometown character and delivering quality, cost-effective services.
City Government
The City of Hutchinson operates under the Minnesota “home rule charter.” A charter is approved by Hutchinson voters and acts as the constitution for the community. Controlled only by state laws that consistently affect all cities in Minnesota, “home rule” gives Hutchinson extensive prudence in adopting its charter.
The Hutchinson City Council serves as the governing authority in the “weak mayor-council” community. The mayor serves as chair to the council but does not have greater authority than the other council members.
Hutchinson’s government encompasses a city administrator whose primary function is to direct the operation of city government and provides supervisory authority over all municipal departments.
City Charter
Minnesota has two basic types of cities: home rule charter cities and statutory cities. Hutchinson is a home rule charter city, which adopts its power from a home rule charter. Charter cities have the authority to exercise powers adopted in their locally adopted charter as long as it does not conflict with state law. Charter provisions can also restrict specific powers of a city, and therefore voters in a home rule city have more control over their city’s power.
Revised December, 2016
City Code
Codification of city ordinances is a tool used to:
- Evaluate the condition of the ordinances
- Check for proper cross references
- Organize and index
- Evaluate for consistency
- Review for compliance with state and federal law
- Insure that they are up to date and complete
A city code helps a city to operate efficiently and effectively. Codification groups ordinances by subject to eliminate the need to sort through stacks of ordinances organized chronologically.
The Code of Ordinances is now available online at the American Legal Publishing website to view the code.
Global Ends Statement
The City of Hutchinson exists so that residents, businesses, property owners, and visitors are provided with quality services and programs that support a safe, healthy, sustainable and business-friendly community with a small town atmosphere for a cost of government that is similar to, or less than, comparable out-state Minnesota cities.