- Call to Order – 06:01pm
- Open Public Comment
- Member of the public gave comment thanking outgoing council members and noting the safety concerns that public officials rightly may have in our current context.
- Agenda – unanimous approval
- Presentations
- Recognition of Graduating High School students and youth who have engaged in
service on boards and commissions
- Friends of Downtown Northfield
- 2025 Activities – Third Thursday, Merry Microgrants, Window Display
Contest, Special Services District (regarding trash and snow removal),
- 2026 Plans – Third Thursdays (a welcome night in September w/
colleges), Thursday Night Promotions (later hours, etc.), Pride Flags, 100
conversations, Expanded Fundraising Operations
- CM Holmes: I just want to thank you, I used to be involved. I know I’ve
noticed the social media presence and I think it’s been useful and has
spread the word. I’m really looking forward to the 100 Conversations
program, I will definitely be willing to talk, I look forward to hearing what
comes from these conversations and participating.
- CM Peterson White: Just wanted to say thank and thank you to the board
for making these things happen. It’s great to see both policy work and
involvement/engagement in downtown. The Friends have been doing the
best job of promoting downtown as a district and no one else is as well
positioned to do it. The downtown is really Northfield’s brand in many ways
and where people think about going when they visit Northfield. There are
lots of other reasons to come, but it is often top of mind. The social media
presence has been super effective, so thank you.
- Consent Agenda – unanimously approved
- Public Hearings and Related Action
- Development Program for the Master Development District and Housing Tax Increment Financing
- Scott Wopata: We’ve been having Harvest Hills conversations for weeks, so
trying to keep things outlined for tonight. We reviewed this two weeks ago, this is
a 71-unit two phase rental project just southwest of the middle school. As we
think about the timeline of this project, in April, the HRA approved a proposed TIF
plan as it is in accordance with housing goals of the City. To make sure that we
are affirming that we’ve had input from the residents, we’ve had concerns about
traffic and access, pedestrian safety, and stormwater and timelines. I know public
works has been doing stuff to track pedestrian traffic, making sure to account for
weather trends. We do have a TIF policy, so in the staff report it is pulled apart quite clearly.
Coming into government, I will say that there are a lot of policies and they refer to
each other, which makes it hard to incorporate into a PowerPoint, but the TIF
policy refers to the Business Subsidy Policy and the Sustainable Building Policy.
On the latter, because there are multiple phases within this project, the applicant
has worked with staff to make sure that the project matches policy and has been
looking to see if it can be moved even more forward from the sustainable building
goals. On a narrow scope, in my engagement with community members, there is often
confusion about the TIF plan and policy. Really, the TIF plan is about developing
the budget and evaluating the maximum tax capacity of the district with this
project. The TIF agreement in June is about evaluating the amount of subsidy
that is appropriate for this project. Tonight is much more administrative about
developing the budget and plan.
- Nick Anhud: Financial consultant to the city, been working for about 14 years
now. Tax Increment Financing is a way to fund specific projects through capture
most of the new increased local property tax paid by new development or
redevelopment. Essentially, using some of the taxes that are generated by the
project in order to reimburse some of the costs. Importantly, this is incremental,
so there are some taxes that are still used in order fund city projects as usual.
But when there has been an increase beyond that, they will take that captured
value and the taxes captured by that will be distributing by the TIF fund. At the
end of the day, the full, increased value should revert back to the city entirely, but
for a period of time that benefit is being deferred. Not all of the excess tax are
directed to the TIF, such as the school funding levies voted on. Authorized under MN statute. Designed to encourage certain types of develop, including the building of affordable housing. TIF is one of the tools that helps to support the different in funding for such a project. The TIF does require a public hearing such as the one today, along with a TIF plan. TIF plan is also forwarded
to the County and School District to allow time for comment. Once approved, it
provides guideposts for how these funds are to be used. Property in a TIF district does not receive a rebate or any other change to its taxes, they are the same. What is different is how those taxes are allocated. What we expect, if the full project is completed, an estimated tax revenue would be $362,743. This is after some of the tax revenue would be provided to the School District. There would also be a certain amount that is paid to local jurisdictions alongside a small auditor’s fee. Northfield does have 10 active TIF districts, that have supported different types of project. About 3.9% of the total City’s tax revenue is from TIF districts. This project would shift that to 4.9%, although it is not an immediate affect and some of the currently active TIF districts might end by the time this one becomes fully active. Proposed district would have a frozen assessed value of $246,800. The project includes building roads, sidewalks, etc. that support the 71-units. The TIF district requires that there is a statutory maximum term of 25 years. Furthermore, the project must meet affordability requirements, at least 40% must be restricted for occupancy at affordable levels and at least 15 units must be restricted to below 50% of AMI (ex. $39,000 for an individual). Full term potential TIF revenue estimates are $10.5 million. Because that is incremental and value changes, the amount would support about $5.9 million in potential funding capacity. This would set the maximum TIF budget. But for this financing, this project would not be able to be realized without TIF financing, with just private funding. There was a TIF application for phase 1 of the project and a $13 million budget, with a sizable gap of $6 million would have to come from some form of equity. If we have a benevolent developer who does not look for a return on the investment, we wouldn’t be worried. But this project would only provide a 1.1% return. For reference, a Treasury bond would be a 5% return automatically. We estimate that the gap would be roughly $2 million dollars, although there is still much to be considered once the project goes to budgeting and contracting. Pay as you go TIF assistance. The city would not be responsible for any upfront costs. You would only be making a promissory note with the developer that if they fill out this project according to statue and policies, you would do reimbursements to the developer after the project has been deliver. The proposal on the table today would not actually commit any money, that would be when the TIF agreement comes around.
- CM Beumer: Just want to thank you Nick for your extremely easy explanation of
TIF. Of all the different explanations I’ve had, yours is the one where the light
bulb went off. I am glad these meetings are recording and I’ll be able to reference
this. This is a good project to have and I think this all makes perfect sense.
- CM Holmes: You mentioned that 30 days ago, the county and school district had
the opportunity to comment, was there no comment?
- Nick: There was no comment, and that is usually typical especially when there is no overlap like a county road that they could use TIF funds for.
- CM Holmes: Knowing the nature of developments right now around the state, do
you know of any similar housing developments building affordable housing that
are not using TIF?
- Nick: The majority of the ones that I am aware of, especially the ones with
income requirements, are getting state funding, sales tax funding
especially in the Metro Area. But as far as pure, market driven
development, we tend to see single family dominating and we don’t
typically see the types of housing that would be needed, so there are ways
communities are offsetting the costs.
- CM Holmes: I shared CM Beumer’s comments about excitement for this project.
Mr. Wopata, you laid out the way in which this matches our strategic plans very
well. I think this is very important to make this happen.
- CM Ness: I will echo CM Beumer’s comments, and for your presentation, I think
it’s probably the 10th one I’ve heard from you and I actually already knew much of
it. Thank you.
- CM Sokup: I’m interested in knowing the city’s tax revenue and how much TIF is
a part of that and if there are other TIF projects that are ending and if the 3.9%
would level out?
- Nick: There actually is another TIF housing district that received funding
several years ago, and that will be ending in 2027 and becoming part of
the tax capcity of the city. That one is not the same size of the one in
Harvest Hills, but it would definitely be about the same as the first 38-units
in phase 1. There are a few others that are coming off in the next five
years, which lines up pretty well with the timeline of this project.
- CM Sokup: I’m asking this because I’m curious, but for other communities, is
there an average for other cities about this is too many TIF districts?
- Nick: There’s no limitation put in place in the statue, apart from debt
limitations. It’s really up to each community to decide on tehir own. We
certainly don’t want it to get to a percentage that you’re locked out of,
more so as a percent of tax base, what kinds of people and services are
needed to support that development. If you’re adding a project that
requires a lot of annual expense of the city, is when you want to consider if
it is too big because you really are deferring it and foregoing the ability to
levy taxes on it. I certainly wouldn’t want you to get above 10%, unless
really necessary, but that’s really up to you all.
- CM Sokup: That’s good to hear. The most concern that I hear about TIF is that
we are loosing out on so much tax revenue, but these percentages are really
helpful and thank you for the presentation and always including that in the
conversation.
- Public Hearing closed unanimously.
- Consideration of modifying the Master Development District
- CM Beumer moves resolution. CM Holmes seconds.
- CM Beumer: Nothing much to add, just thank yous. Looking forward to seeing
this going up, pretty much outside my front door.
- Unanimously passes.
- Reports from Mayor and Councilmembers
- CM Ness: On the 8th, I attended a meeting held by Rice County, all kinds of
organizations, the city administrator, Rice County administrator, county commissioners,
chamber of commerce, representative of Amy Klobauchar, etc. Everybody got together
and talk about projects they are working on so maybe they can cooperate, has been
happening for years. Went to see if Northfield could put together something like that, but
we’ll see. Also attended the Joint Powers meeting. Their move has been delayed
because their phone service has been delayed and a 911 center without phone service
is moot. Also attended Aid Friendly and discussed the booth they’ll have at Pride. Last
week there was a Finance Committee meeting and we got the audit back and
everything was fine, no red flags.
- CM Peterson White: Attended the quarterly meeting of Hiawatha Transit and the
organization continues to think about how to expand ridership.
- CM Sokup: I just wanted to make everyone aware of the Pride Festival coming up,
June 6 th , there is a fundraiser breakfast at the Grand and the main event is in Central
Park, then an afterparty at the Armory.
- CM Beumer: Had a Beyond the Yellow Ribbon Committee meeting that CM Ness forgot
to talk about, so I’ll add in here. We were just wrapping up and solidifying plans for the
ceremony at Veterans Park and there will be an event there after the ribbon ceremony.
Encourage anyone who hasn’t gone to a Memorial day celebration to do so.
- CM Dahlen: Nothing to report.
- CM Holmes: Nothing to report but will have a Planning Commission meeting and we’ll
be getting an update on the Archer.
- CM Ness: To add, there is an intergovernmental meeting at Greenvale Township.
Mayor Zweifel: Attended the League of Women Voter’s event with Zander from the
hospital about the merger between the Hospital and Alina Clinic. He answered a bunch
of really good questions and I chimed in just briefly about the relationship between the
city and the hospital. Also received a list of the doctors who will be joining Northfield
Hospital. Also was at a signing of Army Corps of Engineers for the water tower, they
really appreciated the opportunity to come to Northfield, sign the agreement, and see
the place for the water tower and we were able to show where housing will go and the
new access to water that will be supplied. I too will be at Pride. I appreciate the banners
that will be going up.
Regular Agenda
- Consideration of First Reading of Ordinance Regarding Changing Compensation
for Mayor and Councilmembers
- Administrator Martig: I will give a brief summary. Cities have the chance to
make adjustments to compensation to elected officials before elections, we usually do it before election season. There has kind of been an inconsistent pattern of wage adjustments in the past, but one suggestion that has been fairly well received is basically that assuming we are comfortable with the base pay, we adjust for cost of living the same as for staff, but delayed by two years. It was set for consent agenda because it has been pretty much on autopilot since this change. It works well, first of all, because it is standard practice. Elected officials don’t do this for the pay, but it can be a barrier to entry because of the loss of time/income. Just wanted to keep that in mind, I think considering our equity goals trying to keep that in the forefront of why that compensation is there. From my experience, the size of our community, we have a very engaged community, the councilmembers probably do quite a bit more of engagement with community members, so keep that in mind. I do think compensation can be politicized. One thing to keep in mind on that delay, as the economy gets volatile, it is hard to know how things will shake out, so in my mind if you look at the cost increase, it’s a bit over $5,000 over two years, so it isn’t a whole ton on the day-to-day. As you look at these, I suggest that you can look at these beyond yourself and that state law does have ways of doing emergency/temporary reductions. I do apologize, it was requested to be removed from consent agenda yesterday when I was out of the office.
- Mayor Zweifel: Is there anything that prohibits a councilmember from donating
their salary back to the city?
- Adm. Martig: No, though you cannot do so directly.
- CM Peterson White moves. CM Holmes seconds.
- CM Peterson White: I am always happy to have an opportunity to talk about this, I think it is worth discussing and I am proud of the work we did back in 2017 to lay the groundwork to depoliticize this so that it is a standard thing. It is a modest increase that tends to follow measures of inflation. Before that, I certainly was involved in a few rounds of highly politicized debate around whether elected officials should give themselves raises, should be paid at all, etc. I think there is a lot of things to discuss, though personally at levels of government where people are paid much more. For me, the important thing is that the salary gives people access who want to do this kind of work. When I first ran for office as a self-employed entrepreneur at 27, one of the things that allowed me to do that was
that the salary allowed me to pay someone else to do the work that I would not be able to do. It was really important to me as a young person, who was single, self-employed, I didn’t have children in that first run, but I did for this position…I think it is clear that no one does this for the money, but the cost of doing the work is real and if you are retired or independently wealthy or have little to any
caregiving responsibilities, those costs might not be as obvious. But if you are a person who is a shift worker, if you have childcare responsibilities, etc. the costs are much more clear. Especially for me, I have three kids, and although I have a supportive partner, I attend a lot of meetings that I need childcare for. Roughly, we’re paid about $18.20/hour and it’s hard to find childcare for that price. I think we should think about the barriers of entry to do this job, those are very real, and personally I don’t want to live in a world where the only people who are doing the job are those who are independently wealthy or retired. I think it is good that we do this work because we are passionate about it, we care about it, we’re interested in it. And if we want to make sure that everyone can do this work and get involved. I think elected officials’ salaries should reflect the work that we are doing in some way. This position, compared to others I’ve held that make more, has much more constituent engagement. I am a lame duck, I have no skin in the game, but I have actively encouraged a lot of people, single mothers, minorities, shift workers, entrepreneurs, to run for office, and I want to make sure we are giving access to people. I also appreciate the Administrator’s noting that if we find ourselves seeing the increase as needed elsewhere, a future city council can make that sacrifice.
- CM Holmes: I think as a working professional and mother of children, I echo a lot of what CM Peterson White said. As someone who thought about this in my own decisions to run or not, I think it is important to give attention to the amount of compensation we are giving. The increases that have been happening are not high, they are mirroring the increases in costs in the community. It can be weird to talk about our own compensation, but I think it is important to open any doors we can and not add preventative barriers.
- CM Ness: I was one of the requesters, along with probably one of the elder councilmembers. I can appreciate these arguments and can in the future let sleeping dogs lie.
- CM Dahlen: I appreciate the comments. As a politician, at the local elected level, I don’t think that we can depoliticize anything. In terms of the work, I think we can agree the salaries should be a lot more in terms of equity arguments. The thing that kills me about this is that the economy is what the midterms will be about. And there is real pain in the community about costs, it doesn’t have anything to do with my personal situation and what we are doing. Would it be good public policy to vote yes? I will be voting no, because I don’t think I can see this as a good public policy, even if I believe in both sides.
- CM Sokup: I appreciate both sides, but I want to comment on something CM Dahlen said. As someone who has been encouraging others to run…the compensation is…I can’t work less, so it is in addition to working, so it becomes a really practical calculation for people. Just to speak for myself, I did not decide to
run for this office because of the compensation, I would be surprised if anyone did, but I do really feel for people when serving in office is huge commitment and is hard to make a living in. I think many of us spend more than 10 hours a week, it really adds up. And for me it has been incredibly fulfilling and deifntley worth it, but it is a really practical consideration. To CM Dahlen’s point, I will be voting yes, because I would support in the future compensating officials more in order to open the doors for more middle class people who want to be involved but face the barriers. I would love to see a lot more people looking at serving in office as a practical option for getting engaged. I am also a lame duck, but I would be interested in advocating later for paying officials a livable wage.
- CM Beumer: I had sent Administrator Martig a message when I started reviewing the packet because I was also considered the same things as CM Ness and Dahlen. I certainly didn’t consider running for council because of the pay, I didn’t know we got paid until I filled to run. I do appreciate CM Peterson White’s comments along with CM Dahlen’s. I will be supporting this, if not for me, than for those who will be considering a run for it later. I appreciate CM Sokup’s comments. I never considered this as an option, but found myself in a position of start doing something about it. As someone who has served his country in the military and has now served on the council, I can’t think of anything more rewarding. Talking to people, and we do talk with a lot of people, over email, phone calls, at the grocery store, door knocking. It’s super rewarding. Like CM Sokup said, if you’re at all interested, do it. If you have questions, you’re free to contact me.
- Mayor Zweifel: I served on the Council from 2009-2020, so I served both pre and post the Council’s decision in 2017. Pre-2017, it was highly politicized and even the fact that it has been removed from the consent agenda has politicized it. To me, it is about equity and yes, it is not a reason to take this position and it is not a livable wage, but the idea is that it make it possible to overcome some of
the barriers. Echoing CM Sokup, I have said it multiple times that the councilmembers should make a livable wage. I also think the power dynamics are important, that it is the Mayor and Administrator come up with the agenda. It also comes up in an election year, I think it is good to raise the rewardingness of
this position.
- Ness, Peterson White, Sokup, Beumer, Holmes, Zweifel – Yes; Dahlen – No
- 2026 Community Survey Report
- Risi Karim: One of the goals is strengthening how we engage with the
community and respond to feedback and using it to make decisions. The 2026
survey is the first this community has had that is statistically valid. Chose ETC
because they offered a statistically valid survey and the ability for the public to
view the results.
- Robert Heacock: It is not easy with this crowd, but I did graduate from St. Olaf,
so part of our interest in this was that I was able to come back and see what’s
changed. It’s a great town so I appreciate the opportunity to be here. ETC
Institute is one of the largest survey organizations and we focus on state and
local governments. We are seeing that people want to be engaged and part of
the community. Purpose is to have an objective assessment, give you
comparisons so that you know what your results mean in context, and give you
feedback so you know what people are interested in. We did mail and online
between Jan. and Feb. of this year. We had a goal of 400 and had a total of 428.
We have a 95% confidence level with a margin of error of 4.7%. We had good
representation of respondents across the city location wise. We had a good mix
of respondents by age, by years lived in Northfield, by annual household income,
and by gender.
- Topic 1 Satisfaction with City Services and Perceptions: We have some
categories that have large amounts of people who are neutral on some
measures, such as ordinances and street maintenance. Some people work on
the negative, but we do want to draw attention to the neutral because in a lot of cases you can move that through more promotion of actions you are taking. Overall, people are fairly satisfied. In terms of perceptions, affordable housing is the lowest and most negative perception. Residents are overwhelmingly positive with public safety and in trust with the police department. Amazing satisfaction with the Library System, as mentioned earlier. Clearly, you are doing something right and people are appreciating the services and tax dollars being spent.
- In comparison with other communities, in almost every single category you are at least, margin of error, 5% in the positive. Effectiveness of city communication with the public and maintenance of city streets are the lowest and generally the same as the Plains region and the US as a whole.
- Value received for tax dollars and fees and how well the city is managing growth and development are below the Plains region and the US as a whole, fairly significantly.
- Investment Priorities: Asking about satisfaction is only part of the story, asking about importance is also important. High priority are: effectiveness of city economic development efforts, maintenance of streets, and city communication with the public, and they are all in the more negative side. Level of public involvement in local decisions also very high priority.
- Asking for some feedback/suggestions: for preferred way of receiving news, the highest was newsletter and city website.
- Overall, Northfield residents are generally satisfied with major city services and rated above average for many services.
- CM Sokup: You alluded to this, but I’m curious with other communities you’ve done this with, that point about people feeling they get value from their tax dollars and the point about communication, do those often go hand in hand? If there is a different type of communication, do people feel they are getting more value?
- Heacock: Definitely they go hand in hand. For those that feel they get more value, you’ll also see higher satisfaction with communication.
- Mayor Zweifel: You also gave maps with the answer to the question in large scale. I found that helpful in terms of infrastructure questions, did those line up as you expected? Did any of those jump out at you when you think about other cities?
- Heacock: Not particularly…every community is different and perception is different. Overall, you have a lot of consistency. Typically, you might find that one neighborhood or area is dissatisfied, but I didn’t see much of that here.
- Karim: I did some cross tabulations and I didn’t see any of that.
- CM Dahlen: I have a lot of constituents that look at things of a big picture, so would you tells us more about the margin of error?
- Heacock: Yes, with any type of statistical analysis, you’re gonna have a margin of error in terms of capturing opinion. Like I said before, +/- 5% is the standard, in this case, you’re at 4.7%. That’s true if you look at any survey out there, there will be some margin of error, people will take that to the extreme and say well this is out of context. That’s part of why a dashboard is important, if/when you do another survey, we’ll add that to the dashboard and you’ll be able to do comparisons across time. The 95% confidence level means that if you do it 100 times, 95 of those will be within the margin of error.
- CM Beumer: One of the things that jumped out to me the most was that some of the concerns that popped out align with some of our strategic plan goals. Things like commercial and industrial development, communication, etc. I think this shows that we picked the right strategic goals.
- Mayor Zweifel: Yes, I appreciate that comment, especially in terms of communication.
- CM Sokup: I was curious Ms. Karim, from a staff perspective, is there anything
that jumped out at you?
- Karim: Yes, I think communication and the fact that people didn’t feel city was communicating well jumped out at me. We had 428 people, and one of the last questions was if they would be willing for further follow-up, and about 100 people gave us contact information for that. We’ll be honing in on that, looking at what types of communication and how they want to be communicated with. There is a part 2 of this, there is gonna be another small survey to those available for follow-up. It will be smaller scale, but we’ll come back to council with those results and we will be using this to better our work.
- CM Peterson White: I’m puzzling over the very high levels of satisfaction with what I see as the core city services, less with street maintenance, but high with police, library, satisfaction, safety, etc. What is hard for me to get my head around is the lower satisfaction with value for tax dollars? Are there ways for us to explore further, is it that people are satisfied with these services but they think it’s
too expensive? Are there other services they don’t feel they’re getting value from? Is it just that taxes are too high? It’s not clear to me how we use this to inform our policy, because when we do think of reducing the levy, we are faced with cuts that people are not satisfied with. I guess that’s our perpetual problem, but I’m just curious if you have any suggestions for getting more information.
- Heacock: Not every community that has high levels of satisfaction has that response to taxes. To me that comes down to telling a story, making sure people understanding how you’re using the money and what difference that makes. One of the communities I’ve worked with had a very divided council and community, and through communication they were able to make more decisions based on feedback and make those priorities clear to people. A lot of communities struggle with patting themselves on their back and trumpeting their success, but how else do they know their successes if you don’t do that.
- Karim: A lot of the questions that you’re raising CM Peterson White are questions that we hope to engage with in the follow-up services. We can see that satisfaction is up on things, but that people also have concerns. So finding out what is clear on things to narrow in on is important. I think continuing to work with those who engaged with the survey will give us more information on what direction to go in.
- CM Peterson White: This is great and very thought provoking. I hope there are ways we can dig into the probably very clear line about the value of their tax dollars and their satisfaction. We do have a lower industrial and commercial tax base, and we’ve had times of trying to build up those areas. Part of our problem has been a culture of critique; people are already organizing about types of projects we aren’t even talking about yet. So, I hope this helps dig into communication and when we are looking at this population that are relatively dissatisfied with their tax dollars…we can’t do it for cheaper and there are relatively limited ways in which we can grow our tax base. We say we need to
grow the tax base, but it appears we are not drawing a clear enough line as to what that means for your quality of life. If you don’t want a data center, what else are you willing to do to shift that opportunity somewhere else. I don’t have a solution, but there are probably things we can learn about what works so that the public can know they are on the journey.
- CM Sokup: I have a quick comment on the back of it; I was very pleased to see that the highest rated form of communication was a newsletter or news insert. I worry about Northfield trying to match the presence that the concerned citizens have on social media. I worry about the communication solution being that we need to be on social media and be as successful as these feeds that are focused on tearing everything apart. So, seeing that people would be happy with a piece of paper is super gratifying.
- Mayor Zweifel: Don’t we send a newsletter online if you pay?
- Adm. Martig: I believe that those who receive it electronically, there may have been a lapse at one point during a transfer. But there does seem to be interest, and a solution to how to hit the masses, either electronically or by paper.
- Mayor Zweifel: I’m thinking paper option at the Library.
- Administrator’s Update
- Adm. Martig: One thing that I took away from previous questions and today, no methodology questions today. I found it interesting how they were integrating new technologies and ways of reaching people. Particularly, the communication and feeling part of the process are places to grow and particularly making sure that we are meeting the goals of people not things they actually don’t care about. We are looking at a follow-up in 2028 as we go into a new strategic plan. Legislative session ended and we’ll be finding out about some stuff soon. They did end up passing some stuff through the debt and bonding bill and Northfield did get our full request. The biggest cost is the storage and additional food storage at the CAC. I think the recapturing of food waste is really important and the amount of increases in people using these services has been really important
in matching our capacity and need int eh community. That is something we’ll be working to understand more in collaboration with our community partners. Using some of our sales tax to fund these, and having other people add into that tax base. Unfortunately, our local sales tax did not get passed, like every other city that requested. I do know that local sales tax is not an issue with clear party distinctions, and how this tool works in the bigger package of cities being able to fund capital projects. This is one that is constantly under tinkering at the state level, so far now it is not going to be an option that was authorized, but it is a continuing conversation, especially on property tax burden. Communities are not looking for taxing just for the sake of taxing. Local government aid is one form of aid, but there are many cities that do not. Northfield does, but that is part of our particular situation. We did receive a little bit of extra funds that might offset some of those burdens, but this is something to return to. Thank you to our Senator Lieske and Representative Pursell, both supported both of these bills and worked to get us hearings. It is important to have legislators in line with what you want to achieve. We got the bonding even as we didn’t get the sales tax.
- Adjourned – 8:28pm
