Parking Ramp cost how much.

Wow, parking ramps at the cost of $480,000 a year for 20 years. That is what the Duluth City Council found out yesterday is a special session. The vote to approve borrowing 12.5 million dollars was a 7-0 vote, with councilors Little and Atkins gone for the vote both attend the meeting but had to leave before the vote came up. I was going to post a lot on this issue but this afternoon I got home and had this email from connect Duluth and it says everything and more that I was going to so here it is. We need to be concerned about this. Thanks to connect Duluth you can find them here www.connectduluth.com

It is with the deepest sincerity and grave concern that we send out this communication to our wide subscriber base regarding the direction that our hometown, the City of Duluth, is going. We hope you join us in our concerns. We cannot package it any better. In this morningÂs paper you probably read the article entitled ÂParking Ramp Cost Shocks Council Â(http://www.duluthsuperior.com/mld/duluthsuperior/13309349.htm) in which it was outlined that due to a myriad of issues, the city financed parking ramp for use by SMDC and the new Sheraton Hotel could cost taxpayers $480,000 per year for 20 years. This $480,000 is to supplement debt service and to cover operating expenses. We sent out an e-mail alert to our subscribers on November 18th, shortly after City Clerk Jeff Cox sent an e-mail alert to city councilors from Tom Cotruvo. Councilor Gilbert commented, ÂI feel hoodwinked  this is the first time IÂve heard of this. Unless councilor Gilbert doesnÂt read his e-mails from Mr. Cox, we find this hard to believe.Councilor Ness was quoted in the article as saying ÂEven though things didnÂt go exactly as they were presented to us, IÂm still pretty proud we made something pretty significant happen in Duluth. IÂm willing to take responsibility for the decisions that were made; the bad comes with the good. We have to accept both. Thank you, very much, Mr. Ness. This is the typical tax and spend methodology that will hurt the taxpayers that you represent.In the case of the determination of whether or not the bonds were taxable or tax-exempt, someone screwed up. It was either city hall or their bond counsel who gave bad advice when they thought the bonds qualified as tax exempt. And if it was the cityÂs bond counsel, perhaps a claim against the attorneyÂs ÂErrors and Omissions insurance should be explored. Simply, by enjoining a for-profit entity (Sheraton Hotel) as a lessor to the parking ramp, the tax-exempt status of the bonds was immediately put into question. And frankly, we suspect that the city had to find another lessor because the SMDC lease, on itÂs own, could not justify the price tag of the ramp. ItÂs simple financing and youÂre property tax dollars are now going to be used to support this project . . . too.This only compounds the financially precarious situation that Duluth is teetering on. LetÂs look at a few items in addition to this potential new taxpayer subsidy:- $300,000 per year, or so, operating subsidy to the Great Lakes Aquarium- $2.5 million in overtime for 2004, projected to be $3 million in 2005- $156,800 to fund a Human Rights Department which is a redundancy to services provided by the State of Minnesota- $35,600 to the Sister Cities Commission out of the food and beverage tax- $225,000 to Spirit Mountain out of the food and beverage tax- A very large unfunded retiree healthcare liability whose annual amounts are not yet quantifiedLocal Government Aid and the City Sales Tax, which are the top two highest income producers into the CityÂs General Fund, are not going to go up appreciably to temper tax increases to pay for all of these items. The burden is going to fall on you as a City of Duluth taxpayer.We keep going back to the saying A hundred thousand here, and hundred thousand there, and all of a sudden your talking real moneyÂ. Well, all of these costs are pointing to a further compromising of city services.All of these items, and we suspect there are more, are leading to a redeployment of our taxes (property and sales) and are being steered away from core services. As we continually shift funds away from core services, your level of services will be compromised. This latest $480,000 will equate to just over 7 full-time equivalent city employees. Or in other words, police officers, fire department personnel, public works, etc. A good rhetorical question is to ask just how many more employees we could have had our elected leaders not made such poor decisions, and they appear to keep on a cominÂ. The Retiree Healthcare Task Force report will come out on December 12th, and it is not going to be good.There is no time greater for the citizens of Duluth to get involved and make your opinions known regarding the direction that our city is going. Refer others to these problems, forward this e-mail to people who may be concerned, encourage friends to sign up and get these communications from Connect Duluth. We firmly believe that we all are going to see healthy increases in city property taxes with no tangible return, as long as financially irresponsible decisions are made. Apathy is the enemy. ItÂs time to find some way to make your voices be heard.Connect Duluth