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LAKE ELMO CITY COUNCIL MINUTES SEPTEMBER 15, 1987 PAGE 8 developing into that area. Once all the improvements are paid for, then the community gets the full benefit of the property taxes. Mayor Christ summed it up with "you want to develop your property there, you want the City to take the risk and the property owners reap the profits." Johnson responded that Oakdale's philosophy differs from what is here, but he was not there to criticize the philosophies that are here. Councilwoman Armstrong indicated that Mr. Johnson does not live in Lake Elmo, but lives in Stillwater Township and enjoys a lower tax rate living in a rural area. She asked Johnson if he would be willing to pay the higher taxes that would amount to what the kind of developments do if he lived in Oakdale. Johnson responded that the tax differential between Lake Elmo and Oakdale is about 3 mills. The mill rate range, according to the County, Lake Elmo is 106-121 depending on the area and Oakdale is 115-130 total. Graves pointed out that the mill rate for Lake Elmo is t:3-9 where Oakdale is in the 20+ range. (14.29 amended 10-6-87) Bob Dreher spoke for himself, stating it was purely economics. The package looks nice, he hates to do this, but economics says he has to do it. He does not care to leave Lake Elmo and likes living in Lake Elmo. He thinks there is a tax dollar to be had for the City and Lake Elmo should get on the band wagon. Dreher feels they can be very selective as to what type of commercial or industrial that wants to come in that has a good tax base. Mayor Christ was adamantly opposed to "giving away the store." He interprets what was said is that the City would want to take a risk that we are going to pay millions of dollars for improvements, then we are going to want someone to come in there and help pay them off these assessments. But now you are saying you are going to be very selective and only take the good stuff. This does not happen. You see the junk that comes in when you prostitute yourself. Christ added he was overwhelmed and wondered how many of the people in Oakdale realize what the governing fathers are doing in Oakdale. This is incredible --we cannot compete. Christ asked if anyone in the audience would want to put the City at risk for 800 of a $4 million project. Councilman Graves felt there were things that can be done to work with these people. The City has shown that they had an appetite to identify ways of potentially developing the area and he would like to see that pursued. He would have to look at this information before he would put the City at risk for such an enormous amount of money compared to our annual City budget. Graves voiced major reservations about putting the City to a $2.5 million obligation for 5 to 7 years because we may encourage the type of development we really do not want to see just so we don't get stuck with that bill. This could be worked out. City Administrator Overby felt that the presentation sounded to him that the only way you can get development into that site presumes that you have to offer the incentives, as the location itself is not good enough to attract quality development or that a developer could not