County EDA Wants to Raise your Taxes

In 2007 the County formed its own County Economic Development Authority  - EDA for short. The 3 cities in Isanti county had to vote to join and then would be members for 5 years and all 14 townships had to be members as they had no special privilege to say no. Cambridge voted to join and Braham voted against joining. When it was Isanti's City Councils turn to decide I argued against joining because I wanted a plan and a set of goals the County EDA wanted to achieve. I was worried the EDA, which has the authority to have a special property tax levy, would start raising taxes for specified reason and by joining our tax payers would have to pay. I lost that vote and the City of Isanti joined the EDA. Although Braham never joined their Mayor was appointed to sit on the EDA Board at the time. I had pushed for years to get an actual short and long term plan in place for the County EDA but this never happened. The City of Isanti has an EDA and a multi-layered plan for economic growth and marketing.

With no set plan or framework for what projects the County would support we approached the County EDA to see if they would help with a future Hotel project. At the time the time the County EDA said they were not interested in commercial projects but wanted to do industrial projects. Fast forward to a commercial project that Cambridge wants to build for more shopping and the County EDA and County Board voted to support Cambridge.

Now the County EDA wants to raise your county property taxes (Braham not being a member can benefit from the money raised but will not be taxed themselves). They passed a resolution on a 4-3 vote to raise and undisclosed amount of taxes for an undisclosed purpose. This is beyond ridiculous.... if you are going to hike property taxes at least say how much and what you plan to spend it on... sounds like the creation of a slush fund...

Commissioners Duff and Warring voted against this but Commissioner Susan Morris and Larry Sutherland voted along with Cambridge Mayor Palmer to raise taxes. The final vote will take place at an undisclosed County Board meeting. Commissioner Larson did not vote on this item as he is the County EDA Chair and the Chair does not have a vote.

At this point we have Duff and Warring saying no and Susan Morris and Larry Sutherland saying yes to hiking your property taxes for an undisclosed amount and purpose and we have yet to hear from Commissioner Larson. Increasing property taxes on Isanti County residents at this time is a terrible idea.

I warned about this in 2007 and was not listened to by the majority of the Isanti City Council. Our 5 years will be up in 2012 and I will be asking the Council to once again vote against being in the County EDA. An organization that has no plan and no budget but sure wants our money for something.....