October 21st Council Update

The Council unanimously passed the ordinances to fully implement the Comprehensive Plan we passed last year. There has been a tremendous amount of work put into this plan and there will be future refinement as this is an ever ongoing process. We do however have a set of ordinances that allow us to plan for the next 10-20 years of City development.

This brings to our County who also has a Comprehensive Plan they are working on but have for some reason halted the process the last few months and will not be taking the controversial issue up again until after the election. I would hope the County would have the political courage to tackle the tough issues on a timely basis.

The other item I want to draw attention to is an item I briefed the Council on – the lack of paid assessments by developers. We have talked at length about the damage done to our City due to unpaid property taxes but unpaid assessments have the same if not more harmful affects. Assessments that are owed for the push eastward across highway 65 are largely going unpaid. This is for infrastructure the City built and paid for and then assessed to the developer to pay. The roughly $6,000,000 in total cost is guaranteed by the Isanti tax payer if the developer does not pay.

I will not rehash all my arguments of why I did not support the City taking this position years ago but we are now in this mess and we have to fix it. The addle minded that think this will one day be all better and the City made whole are dead wrong. The City is going to have to bond and make the bond payments out of other City revenue – namely taxes. The burden of this debt will have to be managed quite carefully so it does not permanently damage our ability to grow in the future. The Finance Committee, which I serve on, will be working over the next few weeks with our financial advisors, City Attorney and Finance Director to detail out all our options. I am confident that we will have a plan to present to the Council in the next few weeks that will move us into a brighter fiscal future but we must make sure those responsible are not allowed to do such damage to the City again. The City must never again allow developers to put the Isanti taxpayer on the hook for millions of dollars of debt.

When the land is sold the past due taxes and assessments will be paid but that could be in 5 days or 5 years and all the while you and I are paying the cost. The City will also be out tens of thousands of dollars and many missed opportunities to develop our commercial property along highway 65 due to the limbo state of foreclosures. All the time we have had to spend on these issues is time we are unable to work on moving our City forward. The dollars spent on fixing the disastrous decisions of the past are dollars that can not be spent on other projects.

There are nights at City Council where I want to stand on my desk and yell I told you so…. But that of course would not get anything done other than make me feel good for a few minutes….. Tarring and feathering comes to mind as an appropriate punishment for the people responsible but that of course does not fix anything either. We have been able to accomplish so much even with this albatross around our neck. I will be recommending policies to the Council that will protect us from these issues in the future. We need to make sure we have a Council that understands what our priorities are and that we serve the Citizens of Isanti and not irresponsible developers.