2/12/11
Thanks to Smart Voter for pointing the Insider to the notes on Shorewood's website. The Insider urges readers of this blog to read the 1/31 notes and to show up at the 2/24 meeting at 630pm at Southshore Center. The people in these meetings need to hear from residents and taxpayers before they get further into this process.
See: http://ci.shorewood.mn.us/pages/pdfdocs/comm_vision.pdf
The Insider comments:
- "An end to funding formulas (who pays how much)" - So does this mean Shorewood no longer has to pay half of police and fire? If the cities shared sewer maintenance, would each city pay an equal amount regardless of how much sewer work needs to be done in each city? The Insider thinks this actually would be illegal under MN law besides being onerous to Shorewood taxpayers.
- A sales tax on visitors? Excelsior has been advocating this because they have lots of visitors to their business district and they need cash to make up for lost State aid. The Insider thinks this is a bad deal for other cities (and maybe for Excelsior too). With little retail, Shorewood and Tonka Bay would only make their retail non-competitive and drive it away by having a local sales tax.
- A single identity for all the cities, having one larger city with "municipalities or borroughs?" The Insider asks: Do the residents of the cities really want this merger of cities and if yes, what do they think it would accomplish? Is this like creating a "county" for the lakeshore cities?
- "Formally recognize Excelsior as the downtown of South Lake." The Insider wonders what this would accomplish.
- "End to the mine/your attitude." The Insider wants to know if Shorewood taxpayers want to pay for things done in Excelsior or Tonka Bay without receiving equal value in return? This smacks of a relationship akin to "what's theirs is theirs and what's ours is theirs too."
BTW, the reader will note that Shorewood's neighbor, Minnetrista has also been left out of the discussion. Yes, Minnetrista and Shorewood share a border on Enchanted Island. Seems Lizee and company forget about the "Islands" taxpayers on a regular basis.
What do you think? Comment on this blog post below!
Happy Reading!
The Insider
I wish Lizee would have shared this "vision" of hers during her election campaign. The results might have been different. I heard her talk a lot about "collaboration" and "listening to the people", but nothing about bigger government, less local control, etc, etc. Politicians with "vision" scare me. Give me people in leadership positions who consider themselves trustees and stewards. If it ain't broke...
ReplyDeletejoe - can't wait to see you on the 24th!
ReplyDeleteWe certainly should be able to expect more from these "leaders."
ReplyDelete