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LAKE ELMO CITY COUNCIL MINUTES DECEMBER 1, 1992 4 Sheryl Sarkissian, 8290 Hidden Bay Ct., concerned about a 27% increase in the taxes and not getting 27% increase in services. I live on a private road and nobody sealcoats my road except if my neighbor and I pay for it. The organization I work for had an average salary increase of 4.4% for 1993. I find 9% staff increase incredulous. Did we hire more firefighters for the City? How do they get paid? Why the 25% increase in utilities for Parks? About a month ago you made a big campaign splash that the City of Lake Elmo has a much lower tax rate compared to Oakdale and Woodbury. Now, if you approve this budget our taxes will be higher than those cities. You are playing catch up for 3 years of being conservative in your spending. Jim McLeod, 2543 Lake Elmo Avenue N., felt very strongly that the staff is underpaid. As far as the need to set aside money, it is only prudent to plan for maintenance work. This city hall building was built with donated labor and by former Mayor, Arlyn Christ. This saved the city a lot of money. We should not be exceedingly harsh on the council members on how they are spending the money. This increase does point out the need for more intensive commercial development in this city particularly along I-94. Dave Lang, 5451 Hilltop Avenue, sympathized with everyone's concerns they now face by the tax increase. We are faced with some options on what we want this city to become. If the budget isn't approved as it is, we can watch our \ infrastructure rot away. If the fire dept. isn't given the equipment they need to be a professionally responsive department, I don't want to see a threat of a fatal fire in Lake Elmo due to questionable training. If we don't support the salary increase of our city staff, we could loose valuable people. I support this city budget. We hake deferred a lot of expenses in this city and it is time we faced the music. If you look at the value of all the property in Lake Elmo, 84.3% of it is classified as residential, 6.7% is classified as commercial. We should try to start preparing today the change that way we are taxed as homeowners. One way to do that is to change the percentage in dollars and urges the new members of the council and the new mayor take a seriously look at how this city is taxed. Gloria Knoblauch, 9181 31st St. N., stated we have a wonderful staff in Lake Elmo, but as a citizen she should have access to a public copy of what the yearly increments would be for the staff employees. If you have a living wage, a steady job, and you are doing a good job, why are we trying to play catch up?