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MANAGER’S REPORT TO: MAYOR AND HONORABLE MEMBERS OF THE COUNCIL Consent Agenda: 11.A We have two resignations with regrets: 1. Cory Morse in the Ambulance Service and 2. Ron Young at the Police Department. We extend to them our sincere thanks for their service and contributions to the community. Agenda Items: 11.B First reading language to amend the City Code of Ordinances Chapter 102, Zoning, Article IV, Description of Districts, and Article V, District Regulations, regarding the proposed elimination of the Special Commercial District located on Searsport Avenue. I have no comment on this proposal. It has been drawn up at the request of some members of the Council. I expect formal presentations on behalf of the owner and developer affected by this amendment. Wayne has a memo and initial supporting materials with additional supporting material to be delivered in-hand on Monday to all city officials. (Goldenrod) 11.C Introduction of proposed amendments to the City Code of Ordinances, Chapter 80, In-Town Commercial Design Review. Amendments would require applicant/property owner compliance with recommendations of the Design Review Committee, the area of Belfast, which would be subject to mandatory compliance, and similar provisions. This is before the Council as an introduction of the proposal only. There will not be a vote at this meeting. If the Council wishes this proposal to go forward then a motion would be in order to move the matter to a first reading. The proposal, if eventually approved by the Council, would “require”- as opposed to consider- applicant/property owners to comply with the actual recommendations of the Design Review Committee in the Downtown Area as more specifically described in the text of the amendment itself. (Salmon) 11.D Discussion of Comprehensive Planning Committee Openings. This committee has both at large and ward representatives. A current “at large” member is willing to shift to a designated “Ward” member if that will facilitate the Council’s ability to fully address all vacancies on the Committee. The matter is entirely up to the Council’s preference. (Orchid) 11.E Discussion and action on writing off uncollectible personal property taxes. Request to write off certain uncollectible personal property taxes. I have attached a sheet of taxes that we have spent years trying to collect. Based upon the advice of City Attorney Bill Kelly, I recon- mend we “write off” these taxes for these taxpayers from 1996 to 2003. There is no value in spending more good money than it’s worth to “try” to collect this money. (Green) 11.F Discussion and action on creating and funding a sidewalk snow removal account. (Gray) Some businesses and elected officials wanted to see the Sidewalk Ordinance enforced. For ten years the City has had an ordinance requiring building owners and tenants to clean the snow and ice off the sidewalk abutting their property. A copy of my recent letter to all downtown property owners which includes the language of our Ordinance is attached. Many people do not realize that when a storm hits the entire Public Works Crew is in at the same time. We do about 100 miles and the work is divided into 7 routes. Recently I responded to a concern that a road was receiving too much attention. It turned out that this road was the boundary line between 3 of these routes. Hence three different vehicles regularly use the road to go in and out of the neighborhoods on all size giving the appearance that we are plowing the same road three times more than we need to. One of those 7 routes calls for the grader to be used so it also requires the attendance of another employee following behind in a sander. We have one person hand shoveling most of the corners and for the City owned property, One person on the sidewalk plow all over the City and another person in a smaller plow doing downtown touch up where the grader can’t get to. Finally we have 2 pick-ups trucks doing parking lots, trimming in intersections all over the City. The point here is that when the storm is over 12 hours later everyone goes home. We really do not have the people to clean all of the sidewalks in the downtown area. When the crew comes in the next day they largely go to work digging up and hauling off all of the snow they have plowed aside in the downtown area. In a recent discussion with one property owner she asked how the City could ask private property owners to clean up City owned Streets. It was a great question. With considerable assistance from the City Assessors office I was able to confirm that for most of the Main Street Region, the City does indeed own from the brick face of one side of the street to the brick face of the building on the other. The sidewalks clearly belong to the City. Legal Counsel at the Maine Municipal Association advises that State Statute 30AMRSA3009(1)(A) indeed provides authority for the City to require abutting property owners to clean these walks. They are public ways and state statute authorizes the City to require this work to be done by the building owners. I bring this matter to your attention, as we put no money in the budget to pay for the sidewalk clean up pending repayment from the owner. I ask you to move the sum of $2,000 from undesignated fund balance to our “Contracted Services account line # 160-526”. 11.G Update of City Council Goals for 2008. (Pink) As agreed we will briefly touch upon the progress of these goals every even numbered month in 2008. I attach the list that was drawn up for Council Review. Overall I am glad that many of these items are moving forward. However, I continue to advise the Council that I am very concerned about the impact of this very ambitious agenda on the overall operation of the City as a well functioning municipality. Every matter on counsel’s list requires my time and attention. While I am certainly pleased to assist and to facilitate I nevertheless have my overriding responsibilities as laid out in the Charter itself and that must always come first. The Budget is one of those responsibilities and you have asked for greater clarity and a better process than you have had in the past. There are many other sources which generate daily work and which require a City’s response. Your Committees, our citizens, you, as individual members of the Council, our friendly State of Maine, interest groups, approved capital projects, the media, consultants and a broad variety of organizations all compete for our limited time and financial resources. We are exactly where municipalities find themselves all the time. Trying to do too much too quickly and risking- yes risking- that we are not doing many things very well. It’s a perfectly normal place to be but it is also perfectly normal to realize that we are trying to do too much and to consider establishing priorities that are more reasonable given the time and resources available. Good government requires the opportunity to attend to it. We can’t do everything at once. Time is a limiting factor. We also can’t do everything for everybody and no one should pretend or expect that we can. I have just restructured my work time so that I can get the maximum done in the time and waking hours that I have. Looking around I have to be honest and tell you that I think we are taking on too much. I can work on the piece but I can never lose sight of the whole. This is not a complaint. I have enough energy and I can outrun many long days, but, I can’t fail in my obligation to tell you the truth about the quality of our likely results. 11.H Update on the FY 2008-09 Budget Process that is underway. 1. Budget schedule: February 29th- All Department Draft Budgets are due. 2. City Budget is part of the Property Tax Bill: Last Year Mil Rate (Tax Rate)% County $1,190,809
$ 1.69 8.7% · This is the amount we need to raise from local property tax. It does not reflect the actual spending for the City or the School--whose gross budgets are actually greater in number. · In the case of the Schools they receive an additional $3,060,894 in State Aid Subsidy for a total expense budget of $10,856,940. · The City receives $700,000 in Municipal Revenue Sharing, $186,000 in homestead tax reimbursement and also receives many other revenues during the year for such things as auto excise taxes, harbor related fees, steamboat-landing rentals, etc. The actual expense budget for last year for the period of July 1, 2007 to June 30th 2008 is $7,720,829. 3. Mil Rate (Tax Rate per thousand dollars of property value) is determined by dividing as follows: Total value of all Non-exempt City Property The answer is our mil rate. Which as noted above was $19.40 per thousand dollars of property value. If your house, for example is valued at $100,000 your tax is $1,940. 4. Valuation of Belfast Property: A. Performed daily by City
Assessor Robert Whiteley and Nancy B. There are no across the board
increases applied on an annual C. Each property is separately
valued based upon property sale D. The State does an Annual Audit of the Assessors work and measures values by comparing actual sales data to our Assessors valuations. The State’s most recent Audit found that the city values were 89% of full value which is in an acceptable range for the State. When values drop below 70% the State will require the City to do a revaluation in order to ensure that the tax burden is fairly spread across the broad spectrum of property owners. E. Property value is the value set as of April 1st. If you have the building foundation in on April 1st and the house built by May 1st then your tax bill will not reflect the value of the house until the following year. 5. General January 2008 Forecast for Mil Rate (Tax Rate) increases based upon; -known County Budget (Calendar year January 1, 2008 to December 31, 2008) -a general expectation of increases in City Budget for 2008/2009 Our Finance Officer (Rickie LeSan) and I went through last years budget and projected expected growth based upon what we know and what we think we should expect. This is not a zero based budget forecast but rather one that reasonably projects both estimated and known growth in expense. As noted above no Department Budgets have been submitted to date. At this time- 5 months before the start of the next fiscal year and 17 months before the end of it -We should expect growth in expense at $530,000 for July 1, 2008 to June 30, 2009. This amount breaks down like this: One (1) mil presently equals $678,000. A $530,000 increase in City spending equals an increase of .78 or 78 cents to the current rate. I calculated an increase in County spending at $108,000 to the City (19% of total), which equals an increase of .18 mils, or 18 cents to the current rate. Assuming everything else stays the same such as total valuation, anticipated revenues, no other increases or decreases in City budget these two increases alone could add a total of .97 or 97 cents per thousand dollar of value to our taxpayers. If you owned a property valued at $100,000 then you would owe an additional $97 in taxes. A $250,000 property would see an increase of $242.50. 6. Historical perspective on Mil Rates Oct. 2003 $15.60 / Thousand Forecast: Yes, this assumes that total gross property valuation in the City does not decline. Last year we saw a decline of almost $21,000,000 in property value mostly attributable to the impacts of the sale of the former MBNA properties. Yes, we are likely to see more lost valuation on former MBNA property this year to reflect market value but I am hoping that numerous smaller increases on other property will offset this impact. That’s it for this report. It’s a lot to think about.
Thank you for your time and consideration. |
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