The Strib's Steve Brandt reports on today's special City Council TIF-NRP
meeting:
http://startribune.com/viewers/qview/cgi/qview.cgi?story=84510948
The story will have to speak for itself for now (I'm off to bed, so others
will have to summarize the specific budget figures presented) but a few
quick things:
Steve Cramer reiterated that Phase I is fully funded. Also, there's one of
the first publicly reported criticisms by RT Rybak of Lisa McDonald at the
end of the Strib piece. Council Member McDonald also criticizes the mayor
and other council members.
During the meeting, I heard a bit of tax info I didn't know, but will impact
the "propertied classes" citywide.
As part of state tax reform, the "limited market value" rule has been
repealed. This was a limit on how much your taxable value could rise, even
if your assessed value rose higher.
Many, many Minneapolitans (including yours truly) are paying property taxes
at the lower "taxable value" rate, but when the limit on growth expires,
taxable market values will zoom straight to the assessed rate. For example,
my home has a 2001 Estimated Market Value of $140,000. Its taxable market
value (the amount property taxes are levied on) is $134,000 - because the
growth has been so fast in the last few years that limits have stayed the
extra $6,000. When those limits expire, I'll get that year's assessed value
growth, PLUS the $6,000 - and for many homeowners, the pent-up growth will
explode much higher.
The result: for many Minneapolitans, property tax cuts will be far shallower
because taxable values will rise quite fast. Impact: it could further temper
enthusiasm for any property tax rate hike. The "silver lining" is that
unlocked property tax capacity should boost the city's general fund; I
assume but am not sure it's included somewhere in today's MCDA revenue
estimates handed out at the meeting.
One other thing, about which I'm embarrassed I didn't grasp until today.
Apparently there are competing Save-NRP petition drives out there - one to
put a referendum on the 2001 ballot, and a "Trojan horse" petition that
merely expresses support for NRP but does nothing to advance a 2001
referendum. (This latter is the Word document on the Community Zero website
at http://www.communityzero.com/savenrp/.) I believe several people in my
neighborhood have signed the latter thinking it was the former.
While I personally oppose a 2001 NRP referendum currently, the competing
petitions have created a very confusing and potentially misleading situation
that citizens need to be aware of. Residents need to be clear they are
either signing a petition to get something on the ballot this year, or one
written to forestall that possibility.
I hope the organizers of both petition drives can comment on this dynamic,
and explain their motives, tactics, and progress thus far.
Respectfully,
David Brauer
Kingfield - Ward 10
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