More Good News

We had two more business deals completed today that brought in over $211,000 in fees, back taxes and assessments. This plus the $70,840 brings us to over $281,000 in the last 2 weeks.... we should hopefully have more good news coming soon ..... We are rolling in Isanti.....

Today's Tweets

Our deal with Water Works taking over Midwest Metal Framing building - $70,840.00 of back taxes and assessments paid - good day for Isanti


$50,000 plus available in grant form to any qualifying new or expanding business in Isanti.... contact me 763-442-8749 or george@georgewimmer.com


2003 to 2009 local gov budgets based on fantasy property value numbers.... local budgets need to reflect long term lower revenues


Senator Franken asked if we had to raise taxes cause of recession and foreclosers ... I said in Isanti NO most everyone else YES

Senator Al Franken at Ever Cat Fuels

It was a good meeting today with Senator Franken who was well versed in the topic of energy. 

***** CRAZY RUMOR ALERT*****

Someone has started a crazy rumor that last nights utility and street project was not a 5-0 vote..... it absolutely was a 5-0 vote....

2011 Street Project

The complete utility and street project for 2011 will move forward after the 3rd attempt last evening. It just made no sense to split this project at a higher cost and greater gamble on the future performance of the old clay sewer lines...The project passed on a 5-0 vote...

I informed the Council that the Water Works deal finalized yesterday and that another large industrial building will be humming along with at least 12 new workers by the end of May.

Our Audit Report was delivered and showed the great success we have had in moving the City forward to a sound fiscal footing....

A few of the Audit Stats

City Admin is roughly 30% lower than our peer group of cities and is 21% of the General Fund Budget

Public Works is 43% lower than our peer group of cities and is 15% of the General Fund Budget - Water and Sewer Fund pay the rest of Public works cost

Park & Recreation is 46% lower than our peer group of cities and is 6% of the General Fund Budget

Public safety is slightly more than our peer group at .05% higher than our peer group of cities and is 49% of budget

Economic Development increased dramatically last year as we put more resources into this area as we are 450% higher than our peer group of cities but it still only accounts for 5% of our budget. 

Total City operations are 16% lower than our peer group of cities

The most exciting aspect is our continued reduction of non-enterprise fund debt which is the debt we have beyond the water/sewer fund debt.... this is the debt we have the most control over year to year. Debt per capita in this category has gone from $1,904 per man woman and child to $689 - a  64% reduction of debt per capita..... 

The water fund is in balance now after a number of actions over the past year and only the sewer fund is out of balance and will need a rate increase to pay the bad debt left us from the wild days of rapid residential growth. 

Angst

There seems to be some angst about the Star Tribune article last weekend..... it was mostly accurate as newspaper articles go and as they often go the writer had a story he wanted to tell..... So as a person who describes only one side of a coin he did the same... he only conveyed the negative and did not write about any of the positives we shared. That is the way it goes.... now I suppose we could have said no to the request for information but of course that would have been just as wrong.

The question on population from roughly 6,000 to roughly 5,200 is from estimates to the recent census data.... of course in a City like ours where about 10% of our housing stock is or has going through some phase of foreclosure and a corresponding proportion of the population is in transition it is doubtful all our residents were counted properly...

Now for those who think we should only talk the positive and not be honest about the troubles we face then we will not succeed. Well over a dozen people were interviewed for the story and many of those were quoted ... none of them wanted to do any harm to the City but simply were being honest about the issues they faced.

I find the criticism of myself most interesting as it must be clearly politically motivated as I was against all this rapid residential growth to begin with and those that perpetrated this destructive behavior are not helping to fix the problem. The problems we face are the ones I and others warned about but we were not listened to at the time but we are here working to correct mistakes of the past.

City Audit Report

The City Audit Report once again shows how our Long Term Financial Plan is working extremely well. The only bad fiscal issue we have to fix is the leftover mess from the previous Mayor and Council with the East 65 expansion. We will be fixing that at the next Council meeting.

All General fund budget items and City operations are running more efficiently than our peer group of cities. Our administration cost us much less than our peer group of cities. I will be writing more about the exact numbers but wanted to notify the public that at Tuesday Council meeting we will be going over the Audit Report. 

Week of the Young Child

Proclamation by Mayor Wimmer

The Week of the Young Child

Whereas, Families and childcare providers; in conjunction with the National Association for the Education of Young Children, are celebrating the Week of the Young Child, April 10^th – 16^th, 2011; and

Whereas, these organizations are working to improve early learning opportunities, including early literacy programs, that can provide a foundation of learning for children in Isanti, Minnesota; and

Whereas, teachers and others who make a difference in the lives of young children in Isanti, Minnesota deserve thanks and recognition; and

Whereas, public policies that support early learning for all young children are crucial to young children’s futures;

 I Mayor George Wimmer, Mayor of Isanti, Minnesota, do hereby proclaim April 10^th  – 16^th, 2011 as The Week of the Young Child in Isanti, Minnesota and encourage all citizens to work with Isanti, Minnesota to make a good investment in early childhood in Isanti, Minnesota.

                        

                                                     ____________________________

                                        Mayor George Wimmer

Early Years Are Learning Years

Plowing Damage

If you have plowing damange from this winter please contact me at george@georgewimmer.com or call/text 763-442-8749.....

Water and Sewer Rates Update

We have been working on trying to limit the negative impact of the water sewer rate increase.... as we have discussed over the last few months we are forced to do this because of the harmful impact of the previous Mayor and Council's decision to make the City liable for the development east of 65 and the taking of private property instead of having the developer foot the bill as was done before and after this project. We started at a $400 plus Sewer water rate increase then we moved to a $300 plus sewer/water rate increase and we have gotten down to a $0 water rate increase and a $18 per month increase for an average 7,000 gallon sewer user.

Thankfully the Water Treatment plant came in under budget as I have stated before so it did not have a negative impact on the water fund....

Some have asked why not just raise tax rates to pay the debt. Two reasons I have for that is it hides the reasons for the fee increase and money raised by taxation for the general fund can be spent any way the Council directs. First item is this project was saddled to the sewer/water fund originally as it was an infrastructure project. These fees were to pay for this project as the then Mayor and Council gambled that well over a 100 new houses would be built each and every year for 10 years. 

The other reason is the Council can say we are collecting money through taxation for this or that but spend it on something else and still have the debt problem. If the money is raised through a sewer fee it has to be spent on the project and only sewer type projects as mandated by State law. 

City Hall Retirement

We were informed last week that the City Clerk will be retiring this fall after 23 years of service to the City. We are going through the process of evaluating how we can most effectively manage this transition and reform our administration structure.

Arctic Plunge Donation

I had the privilege of presenting the $1,150 check from the amazing Arctic Plunge Committee to Senior Dining. The Arctic Plunge Committee does an amazing job raising money for many area groups. I would like to thank them on behalf of Senior Dining for their hard work.

2011 Road and Utility Project

I was was surprised our newest Council Member Lundeen voted with Council Member Larson to prevent the most cost effective solution to our failing clay sewer pipes that have already backed up into peoples basements and cost the City taxpayer to fix. The proposed 2011 street project was half of the 2008 street project that was split because at the time some felt that the clay pipes were just fine in this area. Well they failed just a couples years later along 4th.

Larson and Lundeen stated that we should just do the 4th and Elizabeth portion of the project which would cost that area at least 10% more immediately if split off into a smaller project. This would cost those homeowners and the City more now and the rest of the project area would cost at least 20% to 30% when they allowed that area to be fixed. The remaining area has the same pipes and Larson & Lundeen are gambling that it will not fail... same gamble made in 2008 about 4th that was wrong.

This was all done in the false pretense it will help the home owners to wait. It will cost the homeowners and the City Taxpayers much more to wait even if there are no more failures.... if the other areas begin to fail then there will be emergency repair work and homeowners with sewers backing up into their basements as already happened on 4th.

I told everyone at tonights meeting to keep their assessment estimates from this project so they can compare the cost to when Larson and Lundeen allow the complete project to advance. Each dollar increase and each failure of the system will be on them but unfortunately the Taxpayer will have to pay the cost as is always the case.

To refresh everyone these types of projects need a super majority of 4-1 to pass so even though we had 3 votes again tonight for the project the minority of the Council was able to block this much need project.

In short no money was saved tonight and very likely this will burden us with much higher debt in the future... a problem similar to the poor decision making from the old Council majority that we will be paying for at the next Council meeting... (Council Member Larson was part of that old majority and now Lundeen is following that same old expensive pattern of punting the ball for future generations to pay the bill)... penny wise and pound foolish...