The Blaine City Council July 10, over the course of four votes, approved street renovation projects and a bond sale to pay for these projects in the short-term before funds are available to cover all costs.
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[...] To have the funds for the city’s pavement management program for projects like this, the council also approved the sale of $3,245,000 of general obligation bonds. The interest rate will be 1.88 percent.
“It’s darn near free money,” Councilmember Russ Herbst said.
Finance Director Joe Huss originally anticipated the principal amount of the bond sale would be $3,420,000 and the interest rate would be 1.91 percent, but the nine bids the city received came in favorably. The city received a AA-plus bond rating from Standard & Poor’s, which is the second-highest rating a city can receive.
Mayor Tom Ryan said they are entering the fifth year of the pavement management program that seeks to have a more defined schedule and budget on road projects and an emphasis on keeping up with maintenance needs – such as sealcoating and overlays – before more expensive reconstructions are needed. The council approved bids for these lower-cost maintenance projects in other areas of the city earlier this year.
That is bond for the capital, service the debt from general funds [levy funds]. For the lower cost stuff, just budget general [levy] funds. No retrogressive taxation. Just, the old fashioned way.
I believe it was Jim Bendtsen who was the most vocal [indeed the only speaking] citizen at the last council franchise fee public hearing, with Bendtsen strongly arguing that general funds raised by the levy should be used for fundamental, expected municipal expenses subsumed in the very nature of operating a town and providing expected, anticipated, needed public goods.
Not rocket science. Not disfavored assessment. General funds. Bonding where you have to, meaning state statutory levels of assessment might be required, but no turning to franchise fees.
For another untraditional approach [avoidance of using general funds for general needs], other ideas exist. They may not be perfect ideas, or may need enabling legislation to see usage, but what's wrong with the old fashioned way?
That being -- Those more able, as reflected in having higher value property in the town, pay proportionately more, but with a flat levy rate and not a graduated scale where the marginal extra half million or million in property, whatever, is taxed at a higher rate. That IS another way to run city taxation. Our better off citizens should not forget or ignore it. Once getting them thinking that way, they may be more amenable to plain old general fund ways and means. More favorable to those having less, but not unfavorable to the plutocrats as far as a graduated property tax would be, (or having an excise tax attaching on say any single family home over a half-million in assessed valuation).
The old saying is there are many ways to skin a cat; (and likely it's cats alone that most dislike that expression). Get to skinning plutocrats ...