Agenda - Council - 05/11/2004 - Laserfiche WebLink

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Councilmember Kurak inquired if the City Attorney could write a friendly letter in response to the letter from Connexus. Finance Officer Lurid replied it would be premature to bring the City Attorney into this. The consensus of the Council was to have the committee meet with Connexus again and report back to the Council. Staff was directed to set up a meeting with Connexus on Friday, April 16th at 4:00 p.m. or Friday, April 23rd at 3:30 p.m. 2) Fiscal Impact Study Councihnember Elvig noted the Council has not been able to look at this study since the presentation. This is the scale regarding the tax implications that would go up between three and four percent by 2008, and would then start to come down. He has highlighted all the projects that are due with future expansion to the north and west, and added up the housing and growth elements outside the existing MUSA. Councilmember Elvig reviewed forecasted revenues and expenditures. He stated his concern is that if they make assumptions all the way across the board for Town Center and the infrastructure they have to assume they will take on a lot of the other things at the same time. The new growth opportunity in the City is the cash flow to make this all happen. If they do not make assumptions all the way around they will have to start scaling some things back. Councilmember Kurak questioned if the Town Center housing is estimated with benclunarks. City Administrator Norman advised that he would warn against the City releasing the benchmarks, which could shift the final project. He does not think the housing projections are tied into benchmarks; they were projected as to when they would most likely come in, which is 800 or 900 units per year. Councilmember Kurak questioned why rooftops would be stopped in Town Center and put somewhere else, if the argument is that they need rooftops to make Town Center work. Councihnember EIvig stated it takes more then Town Center to accommodate the amount of infi'astructure costs, and the real cash cow is the rest of the City. If they are going to assume and ratify this fiscal impact study and plan from it they have to look at all of the assumptions and make some hard decisions. Councihnember Strommen stated as she recalls the Council was informed that Town Center would pay for itself and would not rely on tax revenues from elsewhere in the City. Councilmember Elvig stated if they do not take advantage of some of these opportunities there will be an eight percent blip in the fiscal impact for a longer period. City Council Work Session/April 13, 2004 Page 2 of 6