Draft of Fall Isanti Article

We have gone through another summer of considerable change. The 65/5 intersection has been significantly improved for safety and 3rd Avenue by the soccer fields will be paved with an adjoining bike trail. Our Water Treatment Facility will start treating our water and removing harmful radium and the nuisance iron and manganese which makes our water “hard” and at times foul spelling. Railroad crossing arms for South Passage are scheduled to be installed by the end of this year – completing the safety improvements to all railroad crossings in the City of Isanti.

I want to extend a welcome to all of our new residents. We have had a burst of home sales this year. Seventy-seven foreclosed homes alone have sold from January through July. This is without the aid of the over $500,000 in Neighborhood Stabilization Program (NSP) Funds currently working through the system. We have roughly another dozen applications for these funds at some stage of the process. If interested in this program please visit our website at www.cityofisanti.us. We are the only community in the region that won NSP funds. There is still a long way to go, but we are moving in the right direction.

Another great piece of news is that we were successful in our application for a COPS grant. We were only 1 of 14 communities in the state of Minnesota to win this grant. The grant will pay for one of our existing police officers for three years. This helps balance a budget that has been ravaged by state cuts, nonpayment of taxes and assessments and an 18% increase in insurance premiums. This leads me to my next topic – the 2010 budget.

When I was first elected to the Council in 2005 the City Levy was 74.211%. The 2009 final City Levy is 55.231% or a 26% decrease in just 4 years. This is just the City of Isanti’s portion of your property tax bill - the state, county and school district combined make-up the majority of your property taxes. The LGA Flip plan I introduced earlier this year has given us greater control of our financial future and has been praised as a blue print for other communities. We are not finished with the 2010 budget yet but the initial plan is to at worse have a zero increase in our City Property Tax Levy. To accomplish this we have set forth a budget with a zero increase in pay for all City employees, City consultants and numerous other savings while not impacting service level. We will actually be improving City services most noticeably with the Water Treatment Facility.

Isanti has been recognized for leadership on two critical issues – Home Foreclosures and Downtown Development. I was 1 of 3 Mayor’s asked to speak at a press conference held in St. Paul announcing funds to combat home foreclosures, the others being the Mayors of St. Paul and Minneapolis. I was asked to speak about Downtown Development at this summer’s League of Minnesota Cities Conference and explain our recent successes. Numerous cities have contacted me to learn more about our great community. Isanti is leading the way into a brighter future.

I want to touch on communication. I have tried to make myself as available to our Citizens as possible and share what we are doing as a City. I also respond immediately to Citizen Input. As part of this I have a website at www.georgewimmer.com – a blog at www.georgewimmer.blogspot.com – a Facebook page at www.facebook.com/GeorgeAWimmer - and a twitter account at www.twitter.com/mayorwimmer. You may also reach me at george@georgewimmer.com or my cell phone 763-442-8749. It is a privilege to serve and I hope I will hear from you soon on how we can do even better.