[Winona Online Democracy]
| David Peterson |
| Star Tribune |
| Published December 30, 2004 |
Townships have been grumbling about annexation since the Legislature made it easier for cities to take over adjacent land in the early 1990s.
Talks to mediate tensions between cities and townships fell through this week, setting the stage for a legislative battle this session.
Should it be tougher for cities to annex townships?
Yes: Kent Sulem, attorney for the Minnesota Association of Townships.
Radical changes occurred in 1992, when cities argued that townships had too much power. Now it's way to the other side. We need to go back to the middle, with a legitimate voice for the townships.
We're trying to establish criteria that require a city to demonstrate a need for annexation, not just "you want it, you get it." If there are services they can offer that are not offered by the township, it makes sense in most situations. It's when they're just taking it for tax base that you're helping one at the expense of the other.
Tax base is probably the No. 1 driving issue. Cities are looking for more, especially with cuts in aid. They can use the increased population to qualify for other forms of aid. A city that needs to update its 30-year-old sewer plant and has no money says, "Gee, if we annexed, we'd qualify for a bailout."
Oftentimes, too, developers pressure cities for annexation because the counties and townships won't let them do whatever they want.
Townships are at a disadvantage at the Legislature because cities can send their full-time paid officials to St. Paul and pay them mileage. The last meeting we had, they probably outnumbered us four or five to one. Our farmers have chores to do, and our township officials are volunteers.
No: Nancy Larson, executive director of the Minnesota Association of Small Cities
Cities like the process as now is. We understand there are problems for townships and want to work it out, but it's difficult to sit down at the negotiating table when you don't have to do anything. Everyone's afraid of losing political power.
There is a kind of explosive, sprawly growth taking place out there in townships that we think is pretty irresponsible in a whole variety of ways. I see horror stories of houses built miles outside a city, up on a hill, where you'd have to later put sewer pipe out and a lift station for each house, and you're going, "This is really bad," yet it's still happening If we revert back to the way things were, it will accelerate.
You also have expensive homes being built outside of cities, even though the city provides services. So the lower-income people are footing the bill for high-value, higher-paid people.
Townships have an advantage at the Legislature because rural legislators have more township officials than city officials, and they're better at coming en masse, they have more time, they are farmers, they give emotional testimony about government stealing land. Yet they have fought since '92, and despite every emotion, every heart tug, haven't won. It's harder to fight with logic than emotion, but we still have prevailed.
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Craig
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