Almost three years ago, several leading Minneapolis city pols proposed an independent study to cool a political hot potato – charter change proposals that included management reorganization under a city administrator and elimination of two elected boards, the Board of Estimate and Taxation and the powerful Parks and Recreation Board. The proponents of those charter changes will be back before the city's Charter Commission on Wednesday to ask: Where's the study? Former City Council member Paul Ostrow, former Mayor Don Fraser and former U.S. Rep. Martin Sabo are among signers of a letter requesting that the Charter Commission "direct and oversee" a study of the city's management structure. It would focus on their notion that creating a city administrator position would clarify lines of accountability and lead to greater efficiency. That's essentially the same study that City Council President Barb Johnson and then-Park Board President Tom Nordyke said in 2009 that they would initiate, in hopes of keeping the Ostrow group's proposals off the November 2009 ballot. Johnson and Nordyke succeeded in detouring all but the proposal to eliminate the Board of Estimate and Taxation. That question went to the voters, and was rejected by a resounding 65 percent of the vote. The promised study was never conducted, Ostrow said Tuesday. The would-be charter changers want it done, and they think the Charter Commission, which is independent of the City Council and the mayor, is the proper entity to direct it. Their interest this time is exclusively on the whether the city would benefit from creating a city administrator position. The reformers have dropped (for now, anyway) their proposal to eliminate independent boards. "We have an extremely antiquated management system in Minneapolis," Ostrow said. "This is about whether our city government can adapt and thrive in the future." A management structure headed by a hired city administrator would allow elected officials to focus on setting policy, not running city departments, he said. There's one problem with the Ostrow group"s study request: The Charter Commission lacks staff and a budget for such purpose. Still, a nudge from the commission might spur Johnson and the rest of the City Council to live up to the 2009 promise and provide the wherewithal that an independent study would require.