03-22-2010 Ericson Memo to CC Re Chap 8

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Page 2 It has been suggested that the City dropped the special assessments from the street projects to avoid and prevent any subsequent petitions. This is not true. While my role with the streets Taskforce was peripheral at best, I do know that the special assessments component of the financing plan was dropped after it became clear that the City could alternatively utilize the pooled, unobligated TIF reserves. While there may have been residents who did not favor paying an annual street levy because of the availability of other funds, I am not aware of anyone objecting to the elimination of special assessments. It would seem likely that the framers of the Charter provided residents with the right to petition against projects that included special assessments due to the direct financial impact to the resident. In Subdivision 2 of Section 8.04, the Charter further provides that when benefitting residents pay less than 100% of the cost of a local improvement, the whole community can petition against the project, the assumption being that the balance of the cost would be passed on to the rest of the taxpayers as would typically be the case. Thus, even if the directly benefitting residents support the improvement, the rest of the community may object to paying their share. Such a petition, however, would need to include nearly 3,000 signatures. If the improvement is not funded with any special assessments, it is not subject to petition. It may be the case that the Charter Commission feels that since assessments were dropped from the streets financing plan, Chapter 8 should be amended to “return the power of petition” to the residents. It has been suggested that perhaps the framers of the Charter never anticipated that a street project would move forward without special assessments. While that may be true, I would suspect that it would more likely be the case that the framers simply intended that the right to petition against a project be restricted to those utilizing special assessments. Amending the Charter to allow for petitions against projects NOT utilizing special assessments is a solution to a problem which does not seem to exist. That said, I am not suggesting that the provisions of Chapter 8 could not be improved upon. One of the deficiencies of the present language, in my opinion, is that a petition against a Local Improvement is an all or nothing proposition. Consider the following example. The City proposes improvements to Silverview Pond to address localized seasonal flooding and to replace the bituminous walkway. Fifty property owners would be assessed for the project. A petition against the project is circulated because the residents would prefer an eight-foot wide trail rather than a ten- foot wide trail. The petition is deemed sufficient thus preventing the project from moving forward or being reconsidered by the Council for one year. Rather than stopping the project altogether, could there be a mechanism that would allow for an amended project to move forward? Even though residents are unable to formally petition against one of the street projects in the City’s ten-year street and utility improvement program, the City Council has gone to great lengths to “hear” from residents who may be unsatisfied with one or more of the components of a project. Whether it be street widths, mailbox groupings, locations of stormwater infiltration features, traffic calming features, sidewalks, etc., every aspect of a project is discussed and considered, in contrast perhaps with previously proposed projects. When sufficient residents object to a project component, the plans are generally revised to satisfy the majority preferences of the residents.