Jim Mork wrote: > Carole Becker says:"Third, understand that you cannot trade cops for the library. Cutting the new library will not give you penny one to get yourself out of the current budget problem." > Tell me something, Carole. Do different PEOPLE pay the costs of these two expenses? I know I pay for the police. I also have money on my property tax bill for the library. Am I off the HOOK for the new building? I don't think so, but if you have good news for me, I'm willing to abandon that particular controversy.
The referendum money and the money that the City levies for its general operations cannot substitute for each other. So cutting the library does not provide you money for cops or firefighters. You are correct in that both the levy for the referendum bonds and the funds for the City's general fund levy do come from property taxes. And if the question is about the overall level of property taxes, you are correct that if 106,000 voters in Minneapolis hadn't voted to raise property taxes for this important project, then overall taxes would be lower. But as Ms. Heller noted in her post on equal priced but different types of properties, if you are concerned about your personal property taxes, the realities of last year'rs property tax "reform" are that your home property taxes are going up while business property taxes are going down because of the changes at the Legislature last year. This is having a much bigger impact on your property taxes than what the City is doing. So if you are unhappy wiht your personal level of taxation, the first thing you should be doing is contacting your legislators and the Governor. Jim Mork wrote: >One thing about the plan that I'm hearing for the library is the implication that even books seldom EVER called for must be out on open racks. Actually in the design, there are open stacks and there are what are called "adjacent" stacks. These are stacks which are next to the open stacks that patrons will be brought into by a librarian. Some of this space will use "compact" shelving, which squishes together the shelves when they are not in use, reducing the space needed for lower demand materials. Materials that are rare or fragile have a separate vault space, similar to the old library. Carol Becker Longfellow TEMPORARY REMINDER: 1. Send all posts in plain-text format. 2. Cut as much of the post you're responding to as possible. ________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - A City-focused Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe, Unsubscribe, Digest, and more: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
