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Mounds View City Council June 20, 2005 <br />Special Meeting Page 13 <br />• allowed a referendum petition to be submitted. City Attorney Riggs stated the Ordinance would <br />need to be adopted and residents would have 30-days to submit a referendum petition. <br />Mr. Amundsen stated it would be necessary to get 990 signatures for a referendum petition. He <br />noted Mounds View was one of the higher taxed cities in the area and had more TIF than most <br />cities in the state. He stated the City had a real need to improve their income. He stated the <br />Council/EDA needed to decide why they were allowing a private bid instead of competitive <br />bidding. He believed there was already a TIF District on the Sysco property and asked if the City <br />was planning on retiring that District in order to create a new TIF District. City Administrator <br />Ulrich replied there was an existing TIF District on part of the parcel and that District would still <br />exist in part. <br />Shelly Eldridge, Ehlers & Associates, stated it had been awhile since she looked at those <br />specifies, but she believed there might be a small portion of the District that would need to be <br />decertified, but the main District would remain in tact. She requested additional time to answer <br />this. <br />Mayor Marty stated that he would have been more than happy to answer and respond and staff <br />was because it was the consensus of the rest of the Council that for this meeting tonight, staff and <br />Ehlers and associates would answer the questions to get their expertise out. He stated they were <br />aware the Council represented the citizens and they took that responsibility seriously. He stated <br />competitive bidding was a good point. <br />Duane McCarty, 8060 Long Lake Road, stated he su orted the concern about staff answerin <br />pp g <br />rather than the Council. He stated because Council was not answering, they were allowing staff <br />to do their job. He stated Ehlers & Associates has been using an abstract value from Ramsey <br />County as their base value. He stated the fact was that the actual number was 9.1, which was 2 <br />million higher. He suggested the City pay the one million and tell Medtronic that they would <br />consider their offer. With respect to the 20.5 million for transportation improvements, he stated <br />unless they had that in writing, he did not believe MnDOT would come forward and this should <br />not be used as a carrot for the residents of the City. He noted 25 percent of the City's tax base <br />was in TIF financing. He stated they needed to think in terms of the future within the residents' <br />lifetimes and a 25-year TIF was too long. <br />Stacie Kvilvang stated the difference in the numbers was that one of the parcels included in the <br />notice was not in the TIF District. She noted one of the parcels would remain exempt, which was <br />the former Sysco property. <br />Bob Glazer, 2625 Hillview Road, stated Medtronic was a fine company, but it was one of several <br />fine companies in the area. He stated the City Council was required to hold a public hearing by <br />law for this matter. He asked if Council had a predetermined position on this and he requested <br />Council and not the staff respond to this question. He stated he was afraid of the answer because <br />so much as gone on because the EDA and the Planning Commission has passed this, as well as a <br />lot of legislative pressure. He stated he was disappointed with the TIF financing. He believed <br />the number of jobs Medtronic were proposing was too optimistic. He noted the golf course was <br />