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Mayor Dwayne McCarty Page 2 November 7, 1979 to construct a public sewer, when private systems have ceased to function properly and when affected property owners might have chosen to continue to permit the partially treated effluent to flow into a creek or stream. Section 61 (b) has been particularly useful to the city of Duluth in the construction of collector and thoroughfare routes where Municipal State Aid money is available to pay a substantial part of the cost. Specifically, when seventr'five per cent or more of the cost of a proposed improvement, such as a Municipal State Aid route, is to be paid for by a source other than assessment, the Council may by a 7/9ths vote order that construction, notwithstanding the protests of abutting property owners. I believe over the past several years our City Council has used this power carefully and wisely. If the power to proceed in this way had not been available to the Council , however, I am confident that we would have in Duluth a good deal more discontinuity with respect to our system of collector and thoroughfare streets. In other words , in some places it would have been possible for the property owners within a block or two to block the establishment of a much needed neighborhood collector street. Section 62 deals with the vast majority of proposed improvements which are those proposed sidewalk, street, sewer or utility extensions , when the cost of the improve- ment is likely to be assessed one hundred per cent or rrearly one hundred per cent to the owners of the immediately abutting or other benefiting properties , and for which other property owners and citizens will usually not have a great concern, Consider- ation of a proposed project is initiated by a petition of property owners or by a resolution of intent adopted by the City Council by an affirmative vote of seven members. However initiated, the next step is preparation of preliminary plans and estimates and a proposed method of assessment for the project, This is presented at a public hearing conducted by the Special Assessment Board to which all property owners proposed to be assessed are invited. Our experiences in conducting these hearings before the Special Assessment Board have indicated that this is a good mechanism for property owners who may have not had previous knowledge of the proposal to receive information and form an opinion regarding a proposed project. Also, those who had formed an opinion "pro" or "con" about the proposed improvement prior to the hearing, perhaps on limited or inaccurate information, oftentimes form a new opinion as to whether or not they would like to see the improvement carried out. For these reasons, the strength of the petition that initiated consideration of a project has no further significance. If, after the Special Assessment Board hearing and their recommendation to the Council , the Council orders an improvement to be made, the ultimate disposition of the proposal is still left up to the owners of the property proposed to be assessed as set forth in Section 62(d) . While a relatively low percentage of property owners may bring in a remonstrance petition (within the sixty-day period following Council action) to stop the project, those who favor the making of the improvement do have an opportunity (within thirty days of a qualifying remonstrance petition) to circulate a further petition in favor of the project which would then prevail , if adequate under Charter terms. One problem with this procedure is that it is difficult to understand, particularly with different percentages required on the petition, depending upon whether the proposed project is a street improvement or some other improvement, Also, I am unable to rationalize the need for a sixty per cent (why not only fifty per cent) further petition in favor of a project when the project is other than a street improvement.