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' Mr. Joseph Chlebeck January 24, 1984 Page 5 CONCLUSION Dr. Taylor and Mr. Echtenkamp requested that these charges be fair and equitable based upon what he would pay if his property were located within the City of Little Canada. The proposed connection fee computations and formula per my letter of November 21, 1983 is not solely the result of my own ideas. You may recall a meeting of yourself, myself, the City Engineer and the City Attorney prior to my November letter. At that meeting, our goal was to develop a formula which could be used for the two pending connections and, also, for future connections. At that meeting, we set our goal to be: "What would such property pay if it were located within the geographic boundaries of the City of Little Canada ?" Such property (by definition) is not located within your City. As such, it can- not be treated "exactly" the same. The one major difference which the City can- not eliminate is payment terms. All property located within the City pay for these facilities over a number of years. The City does not have the ability to extend payment terms to property located outside of its geographic boundaries. Accordingly, the owners of such property must obtain their own financing for the cost of such improvements. The objections raised by Mr. Echtenkamp are all matters which we considered last November. The existing formulas do include a proper consideration for the pre- sent value of money and a lump -sum payment as opposed to property taxes over a number of years. Accordingly, no further present value adjustments should be made. Mr. Echtenkamp also raises the question of a proper fair market value $200,000 estimated versus $104,200 based upon County Assessor values. The function of the County Assessor's Office is to value property on a fair and consistent basis. Unfortunately, historical values have not been fair. The Ramsey County Assessors's Office is working to eliminate the under - valuation of property on a consistent basis. They have been doing so for a number of years as evidenced by the increasing "Assessment /Sales Rate" factors. These variances are being moni- tored by the State and the goal is to eliminate these variances. However, addi- tional time is reugired before the County Assessor's "Estimated Market Values" are really good estimates of true fair market value. In the meanwhile, the City should not use such data for purposes of implementing this formula. I hope that the above comments assist the City Council in their deliberations. If you require additional data, please advise. Respectfully submitted, VOTO, REARDON, TAUTGES & CO., LTD. Robert J. Voto, CPA cc: Correspondence File Meetings File Thomas Sweeney, City Attorney Don Carley, City Engineer