June 20th 2006 Council Meeting

We have another full agenda for the City Council. The three items I wish to discuss are new land annexed to Isanti, two new Planning Commission appointments and the sewer and water rates information. We will be holding public hearings bringing 116.87 acres into City limits and setting hearings for another 202.05 acres. This equates to hundreds of more homes in the years to come. We must be prepared to answer the transportation and infrastructure questions that will follow another leap in growth.

The second item is to welcome Cherie Sullivan and Jeff Kolb to the Planning Commission. Cherie has a law degree and Jeff is a home mortgage consultant. I did ask Jeff if he currently works with any builders or developers in the area and he said he did not. We had one opening originally but the Dave Peterson resigned. Dave is a former Councilman. When I ran in 2004 he was the only Council Member who wished me luck. He is a true gentleman.

The last item I want to discuss is the sewer/water rate structure. The City is currently collecting roughly 25% more in sewer rate fees than expected from the last rate hike. I proposed that we lower sewer rates to fall back in line with expenses. A government entity should not collect more in fees than is needed to appropriately operate.

I was happy to see agreement on my idea to raise the average sewer rate for new homes. New houses in the past were charged for 4,000 gallons of usages for the first year until a winter average could be established. Winter water usage is used to established yearly sewer rates so residents are not charged sewer cost for lawn sprinkling. This new rate of 5,000 gallons will bring greater fairness to all of Isanti. The reduction in the subsidy paid by current residents to new residents will be greatly reduced.

I will be pushing for a vote on reducing sewer rates by at least 20%. Fair fee prices are essential to a financial healthy community.

I was also surprised that there was a request by some builders to have the rate they pay on empty new homes reduced from roughly $24 to $4 per month. If they are worried about paying for empty new homes they should not build so many causing the housing market to be flooded with new homes at the detriment to existing home sales.