Two New Businesses on Main St

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.....

Hardware Hank is reopening in July

Hardware Hank is reopening in July under the ownership of Arlene and Mike Urban. This is a great step forward for Isanti

Memory Care Commercial Project

First of two projects in this area made possible through Isanti's innovative use of economic tools.

Ground Breakings

 Daycare Facility Site

Memory Care Facility Site

Just attended ground breaking for Prairie Senior Cottages - the memory care facility. This along with the new daycare center being built in town will help to begin the long process of developing the commercial property growth on the east side of 65.....

We should have more good economic development news to share soon....

Ever Cat Fuels still Paying Off

Another great offshoot of Ever Cat Fuels and the Mcgyan Process. Our entire area has benefited and continues to benefit from this venture into green technologies.

https://isanticountynews.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=9157&Itemid=1

5 New and Expanding Businesses in Isanti

We will be announcing 5 new and expanding businesses in Isanti at the October 5th Council meeting. These are exciting additions that will add 3 dozen new jobs with the majority being $25/hour positions. The projects encompass industrial and commercial growth in the existing industrial park and east 65 commercial expansion. We have been working hard to continue our economic growth in our City and this is more proof positive that our efforts are succeeding.

In the Revolving Loan Committee meeting today we gave conditional approval to our first two businesses that have applied for these funds. This is money that will be paid back to the City and loaned back out again with the accrued interest. It is an exciting time for our City as we bring in good paying jobs and provide more goods and services for our community.

Excellent Economic News

We are working through half a dozen applicants for our special TIF fund. I am quite excited our economic development continues to add new businesses and jobs to our community. We have recently added 9 more businesses to our City adding to the 30 plus businesses we added in my first four years. As we move along the process in the next few months you will be hearing much more about these exciting developments.

Another New Great Business in Town

KJD Signs is located just east of the railroad tracks on Main Street. Lets welcome this new great business with Jill Reller's lifelong ties to Isanti....

Another New Business on Isanti's Main Street.

We have another full building and new business on Main St. in Isanti. Jaysen Guthmueller's American Family Insurance Building is home to its third business - Teresa's Mexican Mercado. This is a Mexican food store.

Main Street is so full of life compared to the days when I was first elected and there were vacant store fronts everywhere. This is so exciting and thank you Jaysen for your help in building our community.

Lets keep moving Isanti forward together.

Another North Branch Economic Development Challenge

Sign of the tough economic times for North Branch and Anderson Windows. An issue many cities face -

http://www.chisagocountypress.com/main.asp?SectionID=1&SubSectionID=1&ArticleID=11892&TM=32679.88

Isanti County News Ever Cat Fuels Article

Complete Isanti County News article on the Ever Cat Fuels Grand Opening -

http://isanticountynews.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=6920&Itemid=1

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.

Not Burning down the HousE

It is sometimes funny sometimes sad how one word or sentence gets taken by those that intend mischief. At our last Park&Rec meeting we discussed an aging building in Bluebird park. The building has historical significance but a plan was never created on how to protect or maintain it... We started to discuss it because it keeps getting broken into and has become a police and safety issue.

We disscussed as our first option of finding a way to preserve it. If that was not possible then finding ways to remove it, demolish it or use it for a possible training fire for our fire department.

This turned into George wants to burn the thing down yesterday. We had only two Chamber people in attendance for the meeting.

EDA Posting

We have an opening on our Economic Development Authority -

http://www.cityofisanti.us/Irene/Personnel/Employee/6-2009-Seeking%20EDA%20Member.pdf

Eye on Isanti

The League of Minnesota Cities has asked me to speak about Economic Development at the League Summer Conference. Isanti is gaining a great reputation for leadership in two critical areas - Foreclosure Management and Economic Development. The more we do to promote the great things we are doing here the more Isanti is placed on the map in the minds of business and political leaders.

There is much yet to do but we continue to move in the right direction. It is an exciting time for our great City.

65/5 Intersection MnDot Notice

Roadwork on Highway 65 in Isanti, begins the week of Monday, May 11, according to the Minnesota Department of Transportation.

The work includes installation of a new dual-turn-lane on the northbound lanes of Highway 65 and the replacement of a traffic signal system at the intersection of Highway 65 and Isanti County Road 5.

Travelers may encounter lane restrictions. Pedestrian traffic will be maintained through the work zone. Motorists should slow down and watch for trucks hauling materials in the area.
Knife River Corporation of Sauk Rapids is the prime contractor for this $750,000 safety improvement project.

Work is expected to be completed by mid-July, weather permitting.
For updated statewide traffic, construction, weather and travel information, visit www.511mn.org.

April 21st Council Update

Two items that will gain the most headlines are the approval of the Chinese restaurant and the Council approval to go out for quotes on outsourcing mowing of nuisance and foreclosed properties. A few other items include the MSA changes and the authorizing of staff to move quickly to secure future funding.

The Chinese restaurant was approved last night. I welcomed the owner to town and expressed our support of his business. The restaurant will be take out only and will serve Szechuan and Hunan cuisine. The hours of operation will be 11 am to 9:30 pm Monday through Saturday and 12pm to 9pm on Sundays. I am incredibly excited that we have another business coming to Isanti.

The Council approved going out for quotes on mowing nuisance and foreclosed properties. The initial information collected by staff from several service providers was a range of $25-$55 for large mower operations - this compares to the City's cost of $90 per hour. That equates to a savings of $65 to $35 per hour. If these numbers hold up with official quotes then we would be foolish not to outsource this service. This saves the City money, ensures quicker results and saves the property owner money as this would be a past through fee.

The MSA (Municipal State Aid) issue was a simple redrawing of the roads in the program. I did take this opportunity however to start the discussion that we need to use this money from the state to get Rail Road Avenue paved. We will have the funds available to pave the last gravel road in the City - 3rd Avenue by the soccer fields is being paved this year. Paving Rail Road Avenue next year would complete a process that was begun long ago to bring all City streets up to City standards. The Council will begin working on this project this summer.

Marketing Piece all Sold Out

Happy to announce the last advertisement spots for the Isanti Marketing piece we are creating have all been sold. http://georgewimmer.blogspot.com/2009/04/marketing-isanti.html Thanks to all the sponsors - I will announce those next week and continue to praise those sponsors that have once again proven that if we work together so much can be accomplished.

The Isanti Marketing piece will cost Isanti Taxpayers nothing and promote our City to the thousands of individuals that enjoy our many events each year. This type of partnership between local government and the private sector is a win/win for everyone.

Again thank you to all the sponsors.

Business Retention and Expansion Meetings

I will be meeting with local businesses throughout the year to discuss how we may better serve them and what strengths and weaknesses the City has so we may enhance our efforts to recruit new businesses to Isanti. Another important component is finding ways to help our current businesses continue to succeed. We already have several meetings set-up and will be meeting with most Isanti businesses over the next two years.

If you would like to be among the first businesses to meet please contact me at george@georgewimmer.com.