Agenda - Council - 08/26/1980 - Laserfiche WebLink

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Sity pla . its state'aid-cards, right ~y David Phelps tnd Steve Brandt itaff Writers Like a card player, Minneapolis sat ~ith other cities two years ago, ~lancing warily at each other as ~ands were dealt to set a new for- · town it;Paul conference room, the Minneapolis players talked the city's w~y out of a.potential cut in state.aid that might have forced a pain/ul increase in prope~y taxes. At question was whether th& money should be distributed primarily on ~ula for distributing state aid. . .the basis of population... the Players bluffed, 'feinted and i'~, It wa~ t;o the advantage ti Minneap- ~ru~each other as they decid-., oils arid St. Paul that the money be ~d t1~[409 million in s/ate funds 'distributed some other way, for ~ould-be spread among Minnesota 'both ci[ies expected sharp popula- cittes during the next two years. . tton declines. . ~ Aft,er endless months in a down-. Prellm!.nary U.S). census Bureau figures confirm their expectations. 'The preliminary count for Minne- apolis shows a 19 percent drop in population since 1970, from 434,400 to 351,000. The preliminary count for St. Paul shows a drop of 16.5 percent, from 309,866 to 258,746. "Minneapolis and St. Paul realized that when the new census figures came out, there would be a prob- lem,, said Start Kehl, former legis- -tative lobbyist for the Minneapolis City Council. "We felt if we could, take care of the problem then, we could take it out of the (legislative) session when the real crunch would be on (in 1981)." ' · . Outer-ring suburbs and' .some out- state cities weren't.so sure the pop- ulation tormulr should be dropped. After all,~ their populations were stable, or, in some cases, growing. Minneapolis and Stl Paul officials argued 'that thgy needed speciaI consideration because their needs were unique: their cities their residents poorer, ~ .. Officials for Smaller' cities Aid continued on .r~ge 13A