Laserfiche WebLink
City Attorney Goodrich stated it's for more local control — a more homemade product. It <br />enables us to do something in addition to what State law allows. <br />Commissioner Field stated it is more expensive later down the road. It could be complete <br />reconstruction as he thought staff said besides the cost it could lead to damaged roads. <br />He wondered if when a road gets to a certain level of disrepair, could it become a hazard <br />as well. It seems then there is more availability by the City to take care of that. <br />Assistant City Engineer Himmer stated that currently, if a road is in disrepair, we just <br />continue to go out and patch and that does make it more costly as well. <br />Mayor Ramsey stated that if we continuously spend money to repair roads because <br />residents on that road do not want to pay for upgrading, then the rest of the citizens are <br />essentially paying for that street. <br />Commissioner Bergfalk stated that the role of this could be solved if we just rethink how <br />we fund that and do not charge the property owners. He stated they are all public streets <br />and when his cul -de -sac, for.example, is kept in repair, the whole City benefits. He felt. <br />that these costs should be just added in to the taxes. <br />Mr. Himmer stated that's kind of where this discussion came from. We were looking for <br />ways to get away from, assessments. There was recent legislation up for discussion for <br />the street improvement district and it addressed maintenance needs; however, that did not <br />get enough support. Looking at adding more taxes - people are sensitive to that and the <br />County gets a piece of that so you are not getting all of that funding anyway. Staff is still <br />trying to come up with a maintenance policy. We do not know yet how we do that but <br />the City Council seems to want to look at ways other than assessments. <br />Commissioner Bergfalk stated he pays for streetlights and there is none within a half mile <br />from his home. He stated that the City continues to selectively tax individuals — and you <br />will always have resistance. To keep taxing everyone is the way to solve this. <br />Mr. Goodrich responded that the City does not selectively tax anyone. You can only <br />assess a property that is benefitting from the improvements — we have to be fair. He <br />stated there are projects in the City we do not assess for. Major thoroughfares are not <br />assessed because everyone uses them. The theory of special assessments is the <br />improvements are uniquely used by folks in that area. <br />Mr. Himmer stated that some MSA streets are never assessed. Typically we look at an <br />average assessment for that year and these people are paying the same rate everyone else <br />did. What's over and above is picked up by the City and State Aid dollars. He added <br />there are not as many people on these streets. <br />Mayor Ramsey stated that the problem with overall taxing is you run into levy limits. <br />You are capped at a certain amount. <br />Charter Commission — September 24, 2009 <br />Page 3 of 10 <br />