March 8th City Council Update

I picked a few highlights from last nights Council meeting are:

Amending Fee Schedule
Small Grants Presentation
MCCF Information
30 West Main
Blue Cross Blue Shield Contract
New City Hall Costs

The City Council tabled action on raising City Fees. Council Member Johnson did not feel it was appropriate to raise the Park and Recreation fees. The Park and Recreation fees are charged to developers. The money raised from this fee can only be used for new park construction or new land acquisition. Isanti is well below the region in the fees charged. Developers are getting a bargain and should pay a fair rate for developing in Isanti. I do not believe the Council should give developers special protection

I had a problem with the fees Isanti Citizens pay. These include a 38% rate increase for garage additions, 13% increase for decks, 40% for re-siding and a 50% increase for re-roofing. Council Member Kennedy and I felt that it is wrong to raise the rates on our citizens so much. The idea that we are keeping rates low on developers and raising them on individual citizens is wrong.

The rate structure was tabled so we could further debate the proposed rate increases.

The Small Cities Grant was tabled because the funds were not available to pay for the grant writing. The Council will debate whether we want to use taxpayer funds to pay for this activity.

The original funds for the grant writing were to come from a TIF district. Unfortunately a business has not paid their taxes from last year.

The Minnesota Community Capital Fund, MCCF, was presented. The MCCF is a financing tool used to give low interest loans to member community businesses. This financial tool can help businesses to grow and expand in Isanti. This is critical to all existing businesses. I have included the link to their website for more information. http://mncommunitycapitalfund.org/. I hope all area businesses take a look and give me feedback if they feel this is important to Isanti.

30 West Main was discussed last night. This is the City owned property that is at the corner of Main St and 1st. It is often used as a quasi parking lot. The City Council has direct staff to include this at the next work session. We will need to see options for this lot. I believe we should sell this excess property. The key however is it needs to be apart of an overall plan for Downtown parking. Isanti has the familiar problem of parking downtown. This lot has been used as overflow parking.

If we simply shut it down, and sell it without an overall plan we will cause more parking issues and will be a detriment to downtown businesses. We must help create a solution and not cause even more pain to Main Street.

The Council last night approved a Park and Recreation action to apply for a Blue Cross Blue Shield funds. These funds will be used to pay for various marketing of our Cities Trails and Parks. I believe it is important to pay for these options with grant type money. This is a tremendous cost savings for our Taxpayers.

We had an update to City Hall Cost. The total cost for City hall to date is $1,555,784.21 with a $25,000 contingency. I have stated repeatedly that we can not afford to spend anymore on City Hall. We are already 30% over budget. If there is a need for more spending it must be taken out of other spending. We must stop this slow bleeding of money.