Government Officials

There’s no Council meeting this week, so let’s all take a deep breath and figure out what happened in August and what’s still pending.  For a month which is the “go on vacation” month, the Council was very busy

August 3: the marathon meeting (and here):  Council

• postponed further action on the public safety facilities pending MNDOT’s decision about relocating their truck station from the preferred Woodley site, and
• elected to give responsibility for reorganizing city departments to the interim city administrator.

August 9: Interim city administrator day.  Interviews were conducted in the morning; at a special meeting in the evening, the Council hired Tim Madigan, former Faribault administrator, as the interim administrator.

August 11: Bridgewater town meeting. The Bridgewater supervisors provided an intelligent and concise response denying the Prawer-Gill annexation request (see Supervisor Glen Castore’s letter to the News, too, as well as the News’ contention that we have been less than transparent about this meeting).

August 17: Regular Council meeting.  The Council approved

• 1st reading of the new stormwater ordinance (this is an important issue about which much more should be said – relates to the Bridgewater issue, too),
• early retirement for Community Development director Brian O’Connell (but hiring him part time to assist with finishing the land development code)
• feasibility study for the annual street reconstruction project (for Plum, Linden and the westmost block of 2nd street)
• more budget discussion

August 23: Public Forum on the Budget attended by about 30 people

August 24: Worksession where we discussed

• the commercial zoning districts currently under revision by the Planning Commission,
• utility rate studies, and
• the preliminary levy to be established at the first meeting in September.

Looking ahead: City administrator Joel Walinski’s last day is this Friday, September 3 and I wish him well in his new position in Leavenworth, WA (home of nordic skier Torin Koos and nothing like Leavenworth, KS where I went to high school).  At 5 pm on Sept. 3, Tim Madigan takes over as interim administrator.  Budget issues will continue to be big issues from setting the preliminary levy Sept 7 and on into the Fall (Indeed, I’m already looking ahead to the 2011 budget process).  Campaigns tend to ramp up after Labor Day, so I’m also curious about how local candidates will address issues and push our agenda as they campaign for office.

When I get the Sunday paper, the first thing I do is separate the “real newspaper” from all the ads (a process which leaves a big pile of ads and a few bits to read – not sure why I’m still subscribing to the Strib).  I usually merely glance at the Home section since it is almost all real estate ads, but today the one editorial bit caught my eye: “Buyers Want Walking Options Close to Home” which suggests that home buyers are looking not just for sidewalks to walk on, but local stores and gathering places to walk to.

The most encouraging thing to me is the source of information is real estate agents and home buyers.  It’s fine for theorists, academics and experts to claim walkable neighborhoods are good, but market demand for homes close to school, stores and parks suggests the momentum is shifting – buyers want walkable locations, developers respond to the trend, business people are able to have successful stores, etc. in neighborhoods…all steps in the right direction.

This past Thursday, after a couple of hours greeting State Fair visitors from the Minnesota Senate booth, I headed south to Savage to step aboard a barge for a trip down the Minnesota and Mississippi River towards St. Paul.  The trip was sponsored by the Highway 169 Corridor Coalition as over 100 members made the 3 hour trip. We often think of the Hwy 169 corridor as roads and rail, but we cannot overlook the importance of the river in making this area a truly inter modal transportation network.

The 3 R’s (road, river, and rail) along Hwy 169 are economically vital for funneling freight into the Minneapolis/St. Paul Metro Region from the Mankato area and southern Minnesota. This area produces almost half of Minnesota’s corn, soybeans and ethanol, which makes Minnesota third in the nation for production among all states. Other major commodities moving along this corridor include aggregates, clay and sand, hogs, manufactured goods and food products.  The corridor connects major producers of ethanol, biodiesel and their byproducts to markets and refiners along ‘ethanol alley,’ the southwest freight corridor formed by Highway 60 and the Union Pacific Railroad.

The Ports of Savage are important for grain exports via the Minnesota and Mississippi River systems, guaranteeing low-cost, competitive transportation to regional and world markets for Minnesota farmers. The corridor is expected to play a future role in expanding access from western Minnesota agricultural producers to the Ports of Savage via routes capable of bypassing Metro congestion.  This is good news for the communities in my district along the corridor as we work to put together a long range plan of maximizing economic development for the area.

Tom Rukavina, Margaret Anderson Kelliher, and former House Speaker Bob Vanasek are scheduled to attend a reception and fundraiser for me at the lakeside home of Mike Thorsteinson on Thursday, September 16, from 5:00 to 8:00 PM. Please come and bring a friend. More details and directions are in the attached flyer.

I have been more than a wee bit frustrated by the way the budget and financial decision-making has happened thus far.   I want to make – want the Council to make – decisions which are principled, defensible (rationally, not just legally), and support citizen priorities.  One tool we could/should use to help us here would be a set of well-thought out, formally adopted, and completely public budget policies.  Like these:

• San Diego
• Seattle
• Little Rock

What’s so great about Policy?  If the Council could, perhaps with some expert guidance from our new Ad Hoc Financial Workgroup, develop financial policies, we would not have to make each decision starting from zero.

For example, if we had a policy on the use of fund balance, the staff and the Council would have guidelines for when and how the City could use fund balance for operating expenses.  Then, when it is time to balance the budget, Council and staff would know if the pool of available dollars included using fund balance, how much, and for what purposes.  For those of us who are not finance wizards (that would be the entire Council), we would have some frame of reference for assessing the numbers brought forward by staff.

Policy is really not such a difficult idea – it’s developing strategies to guide the City’s typical actions.  There will always be particular situations which challenge the policy because they don’t quite fit, but for our routine decision-making we could use some help.

The City is holding a public forum on the budget at 7 pm on Monday, August 23 in the City Council chambers.  From the announcement for the forum:

The City has experienced significant reductions in state aid and the Mayor and Council have set a goal of achieving a balanced budget without any state aid by the year 2015. This represents a decrease of just over $2 million dollars over the next four years or 20% of the General Fund budget, $500,000 in 2011…Given the size of the reduction, all services will be affected to some extent. The Mayor and Council want to know not only what services are important to you, but also what level of service is acceptable. Would you be willing to pay higher taxes to maintain service levels? Would you be willing to pay additional fees and charges? Are you willing to accept reductions in hours of service at City facilities or longer response times?

True enough, but there are a few more questions you might consider:

• The Council has also been planning major facilities projects: police/fire and library expansion, how much are you willing to pay towards completing those projects (where “pay” means either higher taxes or more limited services)?
• What are the Council’s priorities and desired outcomes? Is the goal just to cut dollars or are there some goals the city is trying to accomplish?  Another way, how do the budget cuts serve the Comprehensive Plan or the Council goals?
• Are these short term cuts which the Council believes will be restored sometime in the not too distant future, or is this “the new normal”? – if the latter, how does the Council proposed restructuring government to deliver the services we identify as most important?
• Prior Councils have balanced budgets by deferring long term maintenance, facilities replacement and infrastructure projects.  Now the city has failing facilities, rough roads and no money.  What should the city do to address immediate needs but also plan for maintaining what it has in a sustainable way?
• Ask the Council whether they prefer to set the preliminary tax level as high as possible (we must set the preliminary tax levy by September 15 by state law) and then try to whittle that amount down before setting the final tax levy in December?  Or would you prefer the Council set the preliminary “not to exceed” levy lower and be forced to find ways to reduce spending?  (I’m for setting it lower – I don’t think we should ask for more than we need and “need” becomes more flexible when the preliminary levy is set higher).

And, of course, bring your own comments and questions or just come and listen.

Here’s some information (much has been published in staff reports for Council meetings, etc., this is an incomplete list of major information):

• City’s budget and finance report page
• Northfield personnel costs (salary + benefits)
• League of MN Cities report on rethinking city services
• League of MN Cities spreadsheet on LGA cuts
  

Need more info?  Ask for it by posting a comment and I’ll try and provide it.

My high school Latin teacher, Mr League, used to ask “Do you get the BIG picture…or just the pretty picture?”  where only getting the pretty picture meant you were failing to place an answer in its appropriate context and, consequently, missing the point.  The picture of the budget we have been receiving has certainly not been the big picture, so it meets Mr League’s definition of a pretty picture, but the budget outlook is not pretty at all.

One way to look at setting a budget is to take the current year budget and fiddle with it. In good years, we add a little to existing budget lines; in leaner years, we cut some amount from each department.   This is the approach we’ve been using and we’ve been only looking at one fragment at a time: adopting fees one meeting, considering staff furloughs at another, community events in kind support at another.

Two problems here. First, looking at small segments of the budget at a time without any useful overview means we make changes without understanding how one decision may impact the whole (the Welcome Center Coordinator position example).  Second, by using last year’s budget as the starting point we are assume that the current structure of government and allocations of funds are correct and higher priority programs are cut just as much as less desirable ones.

Another way is to budget for outcomes:

(1) Determine how much money is available. The budget should be built on expected revenues (including property taxes, other taxes, fees and charges, local government aid, grants), any new revenue sources we could identify and use of fund balance or reserves.  What is “available” depends on where we set the property tax levy (and how much we are willing to increase property taxes to fund government and debt service) plus EDA and HRA levies; it also depends on how much local government aid is actually available or how much we choose to subtract each year in order to eliminate our dependence on state aid by anticipating its absence.  “Available” also depends on how much of our fund balance we are willing to use to fund the operating budget as well as how we seek and use one-time or variable revenue such as grant funding.

(2) Prioritize results. The outcomes that matter most to citizens should be defined by elected leaders. Some objectives can be pulled from the Comprehensive Plan and other city plans which were developed with citizen input.  Others should come from our Council goals.  Finally, what other input have we received through our budget open house, correspondence or other forums?

(3) Analyze what strategies, programs, and activities will best achieve desired results (and what personnel are needed to staff them). There is much to be done here.   Here’s where city staff can consider how the current city organizational chart and personnel fit with the identified outcomes then analyze how Northfield might share resources, outsource functions and eliminate ineffective programs.  Here’s also where the Council should evaluate the current line-up of boards and commissions to see if they are organized effectively to provide the support the Council needs.

(4) Budget available dollars to the most significant programs and activities to maximize the benefit of the available resources.  Here’s where we look to fund what is most important as well as look for the best return on our investment.

For 2012 budget:

(5) Set measures of annual progress, monitor, and close the feedback loop. These benchmarks should state the expected outcomes and how they will be measured.

(6) Check what actually happened.

(7) Communicate performance results. Stakeholders should be informed of the results in an understandable format.

(8) Repeat steps (1)-(7).

A few other thoughts:

Enterprise funds: some city services are not funded through the general fund, but through enterprise funds which collect the fees for service billed monthly and dedicated to the operation and improvement of that service: water, wastewater, garbage, stormwater, and the liquor store.   Since these are designed to be self-supporting, we could take these off the table for now while we focus the discussion on the general fund spending.

All or nothing thinking: some budget discussions at the Council have fallen into a pattern of one Councilor (like me!) suggesting priorities (the Library, for example) which is countered by “But we can’t cut public safety!”   No one is suggesting eliminating the police or imposing service reductions in the same way we have for the library (like limiting hours – no police protection on Sundays, for instance).  Instead, we must all think about how we spend strategically and reduce wisely to meet goals.  Tough choices will need to be made, including choices to eliminate programs or departments which do not serve our priorities, but the choices may be relative rather than yes/no (but at some level, choosing to do some things means not doing others).

Ad Hoc Finance Workgroup: We established this group at the August 3 meeting and will make appointments on August 17 – the line-up of financial professionals and related stakeholders (colleges representatives, for instance) is impressive – they should be able to look at 3 and 4, as well as setting benchmarks by which we can check our work.

Transparency and Accountability, an ongoing effort.

Here’s your chance. I’ve opined that the Council has not yet, despite needing to set the preliminary levy in September, had the sort of big picture discussion that I think we should have to be able to make reasonable budget policy (see Welcome Center, Community events).   It looks like our August 24 worksession will be the time for such a conversation, so help me frame that discussion for the Council…

We have

1. a Comprehensive Plan which advocates for compact and sustainable development,
2. Council goals which stress communication, sustainability, and proceeding with capital projects
3. 5 year CIP with 3 major projects
4. shrinking tax base
5. probable loss of $2 million of local government aid which we’ve discussed budgeting as a $500,000 reduction each year
6. staff turnover including beginning to search for a new city administrator

We need to be able to succinctly understand where we are and how we could proceed to conserve taxpayer dollars and fund our highest priorities.  Weigh in now!

Free parking comes at a price by economics professor Tyler Cowen reviews the economics of providing “free” parking.  Most of the piece relies on urban planning professor Daniel Shoup’s book The High Cost of Free Parking which I’ve read bits of before.  As part of its review of the land development code, the Planning Commission has been looking at the parking regulations in the past few weeks and another look at the economics of parking regulations is appropriate.  As Professor Shoup says:

…the presence of so many parking spaces is an artifact of regulation and serves as a powerful subsidy to cars and car trips. Legally mandated parking lowers the market price of parking spaces, often to zero. Zoning and development restrictions often require a large number of parking spaces attached to a store or a smaller number of spaces attached to a house or apartment block.

If developers were allowed to face directly the high land costs of providing so much parking, the number of spaces would be a result of a careful economic calculation rather than a matter of satisfying a legal requirement. Parking would be scarcer, and more likely to have a price — or a higher one than it does now — and people would be more careful about when and where they drove.

The subsidies are largely invisible to drivers who park their cars — and thus free or cheap parking spaces feel like natural outcomes of the market, or perhaps even an entitlement. Yet the law is allocating this land rather than letting market prices adjudicate whether we need more parking, and whether that parking should be free. We end up overusing land for cars — and overusing cars too. You don’t have to hate sprawl, or automobiles, to want to stop subsidizing that way of life.

So, for those who complain that there is not enough (free) parking downtown or that too many people are parking on residential streets near Carleton, consider the cost of providing the parking that already exists and also consider what you might be willing to pay to park or what alternatives to driving and parking you’d be willing to use.

Door knocking in August.  A few more miles on the car….and a few more miles on the feet.  Hot and sweaty…plenty mosquitoes.  Another night away from the family.  Despite these and a few other inconveniences, I actually enjoy door knocking.  It is a great opportunity to meet my constituents.

They come in all shapes and sizes.  Answering the door, “Agnes” blushed and apologized because of the curlers in her hair.  “Doreen,” in her pajamas, is ready to turn in for the night.  After all, it’s 8:15 pm.  There are a lot of dog owners…and even more dogs, barking and clawing at the chance to meet the candidate, nervously standing on the stoop separated only by the flimsy screen door.  Nurses, teachers, grandfathers, single moms, plumbers, accountants, business owners, veterans, lawyers, farmers, and dads, and the rest of you.   Thank you for politely listening and taking my literature. Thank you for sharing your issues and concerns.  Thanks for asking a few questions.  Thanks for the Twins update.  Thanks for offering me a drink of water. “Have a good evening!”

Campaigns are too long.  Too many dollars are raised and spent.  But nothing beats a little face time with the voters.  Over the next 80 some days, we will see you at the doorstep.

Turner, Burning of the Houses of Parliament

When last we discussed the public safety facilities, we affirmed that the Woodley site (Highway 3 and Woodley Street) was the preferred site for the fire station AND asked KKE to do some preliminary work to determine whether a joint facility could fit on the site plus provide a proposal for changes to the fee arrangement to account for this change in plans if we moved ahead with a joint facility on the Woodley site.

KKE did as we requested and showed that it is possible to put a joint facility on the Woodley site, but when it came to spending more money, the Council said “no.”  In addition to refusing to spend more for KKE to press ahead with design, the Council also voted 5-2 (Mayor Rossing and Councilman Denison voting against) to wait to take further action until we could determine the Woodley site would, in fact, be available (the site is owned by MNDoT and is used for their truck station.  MNDoT is planning to relocate this facility to Dundas pending environmental testing; we don’t anticipate a decision from MNDoT until November)

The Northfield News described this as hitting “yet another stumbling block,” but I’d spin it differently.  Tuesday’s action is a smart move which gives the Council time to check our work, crunch the numbers, and build strong partnerships before we ask taxpayers to pay for our decisions.  What we need to be doing while MNDoT makes up its mind:

Checking our work: the scope of the public safety projects has grown after establishing a preliminary not to exceed cost of $8.5 million back in December 2009.  Mayor Rossing insists the Council agreed we wanted a higher quality facility, thus the higher cost.  However, we have never taken action (at minimum a motion, 2nd and a vote) to raise the limit on spending.  Now’s the time to set the budget and then determine what we can build within that limit. The former “minority opinion” has never been studied to determine whether it is feasible, but the idea of remodeling the current Safety Center is an idea which hasn’t completely died in discussions around town.  We should revisit this one.

Crunching the numbers: Councilor Pokorney has asked to see the full taxpayer impact of LGA cuts combined with proposed capital spending.  I’d change his request and ask: given LGA cuts (and declining property tax revenues due to lower property values) and our City priorities, what can we afford?  What’s the total most citizens are willing to pay for city government services and facilities?   We can not continue to consider capital spending apart from our operating budget.

Building our partnerships: Administrator Walinski claims he has had “conversations” with Northfield “partners” who include Carleton and St Olaf, the rural fire association, and Dundas.  We expect these partners to make substantial financial contributions to our public safety facilities, but I think we need to invite them to the table to consider their needs and their input before we ask for cash.

Indeed, I’d say the MNDoT triggered pause gives us the time to do what we should have done already.  The Mayor has asked that we all “get behind” these projects and I hope this change of pace will help me do that.

State Senator Kevin Dahle and I will be hosting Rep. Mindy Greiling who will speak about creating sound funding for Minnesota’s public schools. Her speech, titled The “New Minnesota Miracle” will be held Tuesday, August 10, from 5:30 to 7:30 PM at the Kingsway Ratzkeller, Kingsway Retirement Living, The Lutheran Home Campus, 815 West Main Street in Belle Plaine.

We set a new meeting duration record Tuesday night (somewhere around 5.5 hours or adjourning somewhere around 12:30 am).  I hope this record stands for a very long time and not just because I’m a morning person.

Re-establishing the position of Welcome Center Coordinator was #16 on the agenda (postponed from our prior meeting).

I’ll start with the good part: People who worked with the former Coordinator, used Welcome Center services, and concerned others came to meeting (thank you for your patience through the first 2.25 hours of the meeting before we reached this item) and many spoke to the Council about the value of the services provided.   Several spoke in Spanish (translations provided, ironically enough) and the message was clear: the Welcome Center provided a vital link between new residents and city services.

Public institution or private service: Taking the policy high road, I believe this position should be underwritten by the City and I am deeply disappointed that only Councilor Erica Zweifel and myself voted to reinstate the position.   The City should revisit the job description to ensure the position meets the needs it is intended to address and the City should pursue cost-sharing discussions with other possible partners like the school district, Community Action Center, and others.   But…City support is vital to make this function part of the social infrastructure of Northfield.  It’s like the library in my mind: the Welcome Center, like our public (that’s important) Library is how government can help provide free and equal access to information, government services, and social resources.  The private sector may manage pieces of this picture, but the shared, tax-based funding, accountability by elected officials, and the oversight capacity of government give the Welcome Center the public institutional grounding I believe it requires.

Dollars: Yes, this position and its services cost money.   Yes, the City is in a budget crisis.  But I know money is not always being spent wisely at City Hall (consider the disaster of a land development code rewrite process, for example) and I’m willing to look hard to find the dollars to support the Welcome Center position by cutting other positions and services.

Beginning Thursday, August 5th, and going through Sunday, August 8th, Northfield and neighboring communities will host the 2010 Vintage Band Music Festival featuring 25 bands from the upper Midwest, the Eastern United States, and as far away as Helsinki and Austria. Local Northfield venues include the Northfield Retirement Center, Way, Riverside and Oddfellows Parks, the Contented Cow and many other locations.

So put on some vintage clothes, bring a folding chair, enjoy vintage music and sample fabulous food available from nearby restaurants. Plan on attending the dance Saturday night at the Ballroom and/or a Vaudeville show at the Grand on Sunday. See the Festival website for more information including a complete schedule.

Gorman Lake is on the 2010 Impaired Waters list.   Gorman Lake is part of the Cannon River watershed located in the southwest corner of Senate District 25.  A constituent from the area contacted me a few weeks ago to express concerns about the lake and what can be done about it.  I sat down with Beth Kallestad, executive director of the Cannon River Watershed Parnership to talk about Gorman Lake and other rivers, lakes, and streams in the area.

The Cannon River Watershed Partnership celebrates its 20th anniversary this month.  It’s a great organization with dedicated workers and volunteers. The organization’s goal is to make the watershed that spans six counties from Dakota to Rice to Steel counties, “drinkable, fishable, and swimmable for everyone.”  Gorman Lake experienced a manure spill in 2006 and the CRWP started monitoring the lake in 2007. The Minnesota Pollution Control agency and the DNR have also been studying the lake over the last several years, assessments being the first step, followed by a plan for implementation.  Funding is always an issue.   Clean Water Funds do not go directly to non-profits such as the CRWP.  The organization must rely on government entities such as the Soil and Water Conservation district boards to apply for funds to be distributed at the local level. The CRWP works to bring together these and other agencies to use grant money to monitor waterways and implement best management practices.

Ultimately, we all need to take an interest in protecting and improving the water quality and natural systems of Minnesota’s lakes and rivers.  Passing the Legacy Amendment in 2008 showed that Minnesotan’s do have an interest in preserving our most precious resource, our water.  Gorman Lake is just one of those lakes. We should all be interested in its success or failure.

August is packed with events according the calendar at the Minnesota Historical Society’s website. Prairie camps, archeology events, walking tours and even a lego model display of the capitol are just a sampling of what’s available.

The Scott County Workforce Center is hosting a free workshop titled Change Your Stripes/Do What You Love for a Living on Wednesday, August 25, from 9:00 to 11:00 AM at the Scott County Law Enforcement Center in Shakopee. The program promises to help you identify your DREAM JOB, build a STRATEGY that works, STAND OUT from the herd, write a RESUME THAT WORKS, INTERVIEW to win, NETWORK for success and take control of your $$$. The workshop, which is sponsored by Thrivant Financial for Lutherans, will be held at the Scott County Law Enforcement Center in Shakopee and registration is required.