Minutes - Council - 11/29/1995 - Budget Public Hearing

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plow the next day and scrape all the sand into the ditch. He felt that second track could have been eliminated and there probably is not a need for another maintenance worker. He added that his tax increase is more than he can afford. Ed Brun, 16611 Yttrium Street NW, Ramsey, felt that if the government is making an effort to reduce its spending, his taxes should not have increased 22.5%. Mayor Hardin called his attention to the breakdown of the taxes and what the City's actual portion is. Ms. Hart explained that increases are needed to provide services and with more residents comes the need for more services. New properties come on line and we do not collect full taxes from these properties for about two years. Where Ramsey is, tax wise and employee per capita wise, in comparison to other cities was noted. Marcia, 14143 Barium Street NW, Ramsey, stated that her taxes increased 111.2% and her property value only went up about 3%. Ms. Hart explained that the increase is that high because of value increases - they are not proportionate. If there were no value increases - the bottom line increase would have been 1.5%. Our baseline increase of 3.43% does not impute any increases in value. John Karst, 17650 Cobalt Street NW, Ramsey, asked why the City cannot practice a little fiscal restraint. We are overspending - our police department is double the cost of what Andover's is. We have 10 to 15 police officers and we should be able to get by with half that. We are buying new police cars all the time and they should be lasting 8 to 10 years instead. With regard to blacktopping roads - crushed rock was used and he felt his street was in worse condition after it was topped. Mr. Karst continued that the playground in his neighborhood was not mowed in over a year. The park across the road from 179th and County Road 7 was closed for over a year - the gate was padlocked and chained. We are charged $3 every couple months for recycling and the company that picks it up is making a profit on it. The City of Andover is not charging anything for their recycling. He referred to an article he read in the Readers Digest, that claimed that recycling companies pick up the recycling and then deposits it in the garbage/landfills anyway. Companies are making profit on paper recycling as well as the tin and aluminum. They should be paying us to recycle. Last year at this meeting, one of our lady Councilmembers said to jack up the levy because no one complained. He stated he was glad the other Councilmembers were against that action and he hopes they stick to that again. We are getting more businesses in Ramsey - we should notice an increase in the tax bases. The businesses and new homeowners should be charged more taxes - they should be paying their proportionate share. Mayor Hardin stated that the City has made an effort to try to a~act new businesses to the City and we have experienced some success in that area. The problem is, it takes time to build buildings and get the tax bases flowing in. He added that services have to be provided and that they have to be increased due to growth in the City. The Police Department is the biggest part of the budget but these are choices we have to make and it helps to get input to make the decision together. City Administrator Schroeder stated that with regard to Police staffing - there are 15 people in the Department - two of which are clerical. There are 17,000 people in Ramsey and if you compare it to any other city on a population basis, you would find Ramsey is significantly below normal staffing ranges. The reason we can get by on a somewhat lower number of police officers is because we are not a large retail community. The Star Budget Public Hearing/City Council/November 29, 1995 Page 2 of 4