2004-08-23 Regular Meeting, Public Hearing, and Workshop Meeting

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$ � lit3' �madri�o Statement by Guy Sutherland before the La Porte City Council August 23, 2004 I commend the Council for the time and effort it spent trying to hold the line on expenses while maintaining our quality of life but some things need to be said about budgeting. The primary concerns of any city government are police, fire, water, and sewer. Parks and Recreation, Senior Citizen, and Emergency Medical Services programs are normally secondary but La Porte has given them priority to meet our quality of life goal. You have struggled with the budget and done your best but I think there are more projects needed than you can currently finance. They should be prioritized and acted upon without lack of funding used as the excuse for delay or to raise taxes. Your list should include a new police station, Fairmont Park overpass, extension of Bay Area Boulevard, revamp of Sens Road which supports major drainage enhancements, another EMS unit, rebuilding Canada Street, & two new fire stations, all major expenditures. You will note that I did not list development of the TIRZ area or funding of any part of a hotel or conference center. These are not proper expenditures of tax money and private developers should pay the full expense except for the normal city services listed above. 1 I have considered where to get money from if not higher taxes. I note- That the proposed tax rate is $0.716 which is marginally higher than the old 0.71 rate and I fear this is indicative of things to come. I think we need to convert some unused assets to cash and aggressively solicit businesses which would generate sales tax before considering a tax increase. I suggest we sell the old Entex building which is idle. The land on Sens Road can be sold since a superior location for Fire House #3 exists on land already owned by the city. The choice of the site on Spencer to build the new police station was excellent and frees up the old proposed site which should bring a good price since it is on Fairmont Parkway. Other plusses are that the two existing police buildings now used can be sold and all these sales will increase the yearly city income by putting property back on the tax rolls. I already expressed my opinion on the Hotel and Conference center. The $550,000 we paid for the Klein property should add substantially to our working fund after the property is transferred to a private developer. Total income from all of these sales would be over $1 million which should be enough to prevent a property tax increase for awhile and avoid personnel staffing problems. Added sales tax is impossible to predict and there may be some new bonds in our future but only after we have exhausted other revenue sources. I suggest you set the tax rate for 2004-5 at $0.71/100 and aggressively pursue sale of our unneeded assets and attract new businesses to generate sales tax. Keep your attention on current needs and not on a dream of what might happen someday but would benefit very few of our residents.