02-27-1995 - Laserfiche WebLink

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Mounds View City Council Page 2 Regular Meeting February 27, 1995 Senator Novak offered an update on the early stages of the Legislative Session regarding the issues that could affect Mounds View; the dominating issue being the budget. Mr. Novak chairs the Jobs, Energy and Community Development Committee, which has jurisdiction in the areas of housing, community finance, redevelopment finance, utility issues, and labor management issues. Senator Novak explained the Metropolitan Area Fair Tax Base Act which he authored along with Representative Myron Orfield. This Act would take into account the tax base of the metropolitan area, the causes of specific needs of that area, and would propose changes to the current structure. This Act would be very advantageous to a city such as Mounds View, along with most of the north suburban area. The Metropolitan Area Fair Tax Base Act would acknowledge the role that cities like Mounds View and many others have played over the last two decades in terms of providing equality of access to the communities to people of all incomes, and would suggest that some of the resources of the newer, more wealthy communities be shared. As additional evidence that the sharing of resources would be warranted, those wealthier communities, such as Apple Valley and Eden Prairie, have benefited from the metropolitan tax base. Those communities have received the vast majority of new revenues for highways, sewers, and other services to build their infrastructure. Unfortunately, those communities have superimposed local ordinances that have prevented low income people from living there, while at the same time, offering local economic development packages to attract businesses. Councilmember Hankner requested clarification regarding the revenues to build the infrastructures of the more wealthy suburban communities. Senator Novak explained that over the last six or seven years, the vast majority of the highway dollars have gone to the southern suburbs along with a variety of financial support systems for the development of sewers and other services. Those suburbs have made it impossible for private housing to be developed in an affordable way for middle-income people. Senator Novak reported that he has also been working on state-wide proposals to radically change the property tax structure in the State to achieve a property tax that would be more suitable, easy to understand, and would deliver a property tax cut. Linke commented that there were several bills regarding tax • increment financing, one of which would have the potential to derail several of the initiatives that the City Council had started