03.01 - Approval of City Council Minutes

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M�or Adam's_�enin�Statement on Urban�Iiural_Taxation Part of the Council's job is to make tough decisions; some people will agree and some will disagree. Our job is to balance the needs and wants of the community to ensure a fair and equal outconne as much as possible.. After the Economic Development Committee made their presentation to the Council stating their feeling that residents across our community all basically received similar services, I studied the budget again. It didn't talce long to discover that, yes, the EDC was correct in their assessment. Each category will NOT be exact for everyone ; I don't benefit from street lights, but I do acicnowledge that, of the 35 miles of streets our Public Worlcs Department takes care of, 22 (or more than twice as many) of those miles are outside what some would call the "old city." We all benefit from the Civil Defense sirens the City has installed for our safety, we all benefit from the Police Department who provides for our safety every day, the same goes for the Fire Department. Every category I studied told me that, yes, we all benefit greatly from being one City and, because of that, I believe the decision needs to be made to equalize taxes. First of all, [ would lilce to address the rumor that this equalization of taxes will double your taxes - this is just flat out wrong. If you have looked at the City web site where our outside advisor had detailed calculations for numerous categories, or look at the summary handout tonight, you will see this rumor is not true. As we all lceep stating, this �NLY affects the City portion ofyour tax bill... and even then it will NOT double that portion - or even come close. That being said, [ feel the next issue is "how do we do this in a manner that is reasonable to all." At the Public Hearing, Councilman Gardner made an excellent point: People have a budget, they need to plan for changes in that budget. My struggle is timing. For residents who are pushing so hard for instantaneous change, try loolcing at how it would affect you if it were the other way around. We must be fair. Some residents feel this change should have happened 5 or 10 years ago. The fact is history cannot be changed or updated - we can only deal with the issues in front of us today and decide what is best for our city going forward.