March 5 Council meeting

Had all council members there, so that is always nice. We opened the meeting with a public hearing on the budget. That is more of a formality, because the budget is set, and to meet our legal requirements, we pretty much had to approve it then. The budget didn't turn out as I thought. And I am going to throw the council under the bus on this one.

The tax levy was raised 2 cents from $10.07 to $10.09. In the grand scheme of things, that is not going to affect property owners that much. On a $150,000 house, that raises your property tax, about $1.50 a year. But I don't have a vote, so I guess it doesn't matter. But here is what I wanted. We budgeted a surplus for the 2014/15 year. And we would have had a surplus had we lowered our levy. And we still would have had a surplus had we made the levy $9.97, which I thought is what was initially agreed to.

Again, for the median house in Roland, we are talking about a $5 a year difference. So I'm not saying this is a huge deal. But, from a marketing standpoint, I think the decision is a giant fail. One, we could tell our constituents that we cut the tax levy. That's always a nice thing to let people keep more of their own money, even if it is just a couple bucks. Number two, it looks better to be under $10. Target doesn't sell stuff for $10.09. But they do for $9.97 or $9.99. Getting under $10, whether you are selling a widget, or having your town compared to others is a good deal. We already have one of the lowest tax rates in the county. That's good. But to tout our town, and when people want to move here, we and realtors and whoever, can say, "Roland's tax levy is under $10.00".

I could have been a dick about it, and not signed the budget, and drug everybody in for more meetings. But I didn't. But I do find the move shortsighted, especially when we would have had a surplus either way. In the end, we are still in good shape, and the council, employees, and boards do a good job for having a lot of perks in Roland for the low tax levy that we have. But from a marketing point of view, I think we could have done better.

In other stuff, we had a report from the president of the Library Board, as to what is going on at the Roland Library, and what they are trying to accomplish going forward. No real earthshaking news from our department heads. We are doing fine for salt and sand and just general snow removal.

We passed the 2nd reading of the ordinance allowing ATVs to be used on streets if they are being used for the purpose of going between snow removal jobs. We passed the first reading of the ordinance clarifying the homeowner's responsibility of the water service line from the main to a home.

Next we had a discussion regarding reimbursement of water/sewer bills for all customers in Roland since we have asked everyone to keep one faucet trickling until spring hits. As a reminder, the City has officially announced and asked everyone in the city to keep one faucet at a small stream flowing to prevent service lines from freezing in this exceptionally cold year. That is a small insurance price to avoid a frozen pipe underground. Anyway, at this meeting, the council agreed to credit up to $20 of extra water/sewer bill, over the last 3 months average, if the reimbursement is requested via writing or email. So for the citizens, if you want reimbursement, #1 you need to ask in writing or email, #2 your bill here in March has to be more than the previous 3 month average, #3, the city will credit up to $20 (so if you bill was only up $10 over average, you will get a $10 credit.) A more public notice that this blog will come later. Watch the city's Facebook page or website for details.

Lastly, we had a brief discussion regarding police protection. We were approached with the idea of forming a McCallsburg/Zearing/Roland police department (much like Ellsworth/Jewell/Stanhope). There is various amounts of discontent with the police protection provided for the amount we are paying. Some discussion may begin as the year goes on, but nothing is really happening with that. To me, the idea has some merit, but I'm not a huge fan of the idea. We have also had a conversation with Story City about having them cover our police protection. Cambridge currently does so with Huxley, in a similar set up. I know Story City just needed to do a tax hike, basically to pay for a 6th police officer. We currently are paying around $65,000 to Story County for our police protection. If we can pay the same amount, and get more hours of coverage, I see this idea as having even more merit. Of course, Story City would have to agree, and obviously a higher workload would be of concern to them. Nothing really happening with this idea now, but it is be bandied about by all parties. So maybe more to come of all that, or maybe nothing to come. Let your council members know if you have a preference for as is, or either of those two options.