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HomeMy WebLinkAboutItem 3 City of Lakeville Administration Memorandum To: Mayor and City Council From: Justin Miller, City Administrator Allyn G. Kuennen, Assistant City Administrator Date: December 14, 2020 Subject: City of Lakeville Legislative Priorities City Council reviewed the draft 2021 Legislative Priorities at their November 23rd work session and directed staff to revise the document to make the following items the Primary Legislative Priorities: A. Economic Development & Revitalization B. State Mandates on Local Authority C. County Road 50/Interstate 35 Interchange Capacity D. Absentee Voting E. Legislative Redistricting F. Expansion of Broadband Highspeed Internet G. Storage of Railroad Cars within Urban Residential Areas H. Met Council Governance The document also includes a secondary list of Additional Legislative Priorities, that are important to track and monitor throughout the legislative session in case these issues arise. The attached document has been sent to our legislative delegation, including local, state and federally elected officials with an invitation for them to review and discuss the priorities with the City Council at your December 14th work session. City of Lakeville 2021 Legislative Priorities Adopted: ______________, 202___ 2 TABLE OF CONTENTS – Primary Legislative Priorities A. Economic Development & Revitalization Pages 3-5 B. State Mandates on Local Authority C. County Road 50/Interstate 35 Interchange Capacity D. Absentee Voting E. Legislative Redistricting F. Expansion of Broadband Highspeed Internet G. Storage of Railroad Cars within Urban Residential Areas H. Met Council Governance Additional Legislative Priorities Local Control, Municipal Revenue, and Taxation Pages 6–7 A. Expansion of Wine and Strong Beer Sales in Grocery/C-Stores B. Revenue Restrictions C. Data Practices Act D. Fiscal Disparity Fund Distribution E. Targeting Tax Relief Directly to Individuals Transportation: Page 7 A. Transportation System Improvement and Maintenance Funding B. Dan Patch Commuter Rail Corridor Economic Development: Page 7 A. Workforce Development Programs B. Tax Increment Financing (TIF) Housing: Page 8 A. City Role in Housing 3 Primary Legislative Priorities A. Economic Development & Revitalization: 1. Support for Small Businesses: Small businesses are the engines of local economies, and many have been hard hit by repercussions from the pandemic. The City of Lakeville supports programs designed to keep local businesses, such as hospitality venues, fitness centers, and salons, afloat and thriving as they face the consequences of a global pandemic. 2. Expansion of the Job Creation Fund (JCF) and Minnesota Investment Fund (MIF): The City of Lakeville supports the expansion of state programs to allow cities the ability to provide competitive incentive packages. The Job Creation Fund provides financial incentives to new and expanding businesses that meet certain job creation and capital investment targets. The Minnesota Investment Fund provides financing to help add new workers and retain high-quality jobs on a statewide basis. Both programs have successfully been used in Lakeville and are needed economic development tools. 3. The City of Lakeville supports fully funding the Minnesota Job Skills Partnership and other workforce training programs administered by the Department of Employment and Economic Development, the Department of Human Services, and the various education agencies B. State Mandates on Local Authority: Lakeville opposes statutory changes which erode local control and authority. The legislature should reward cities who do not receive Local Government Aid by exempting them from burdensome mandates and other restrictions that impact our competitiveness in the marketplace. The Legislature has previously created or mandated tasks requiring new or added local costs without corresponding State funding or has capped fees available for cities to recoup costs from imposed mandates. New unfunded mandates cause increased property taxes which impede cities’ ability to fund traditional services. Lakeville is specifically concerned about cities maintaining their control of the right-of-way regarding the design and installation of telecommunication equipment and the repeal of the local government salary cap. The Legislature should also allow local units of government to impose infrastructure fees so new development pays its fair share of the off-site, as well as the on-site, costs of public infrastructure to adequately serve new development. Traditional financing methods tend to subsidize new development at the expense of the existing community, place inefficient pressures on public facilities, and allow under-utilization of existing infrastructure. C. County Road 50/Interstate 35 Interchange Capacity: Over the past nine years the City has invested over $20 million dollars along the County Road 50 corridor and Interstate 35 interchange area in preparation for the future reconstruction of the interchange. In addition, the City invested another $750,000, with the help of Met 4 Council’s Right-of-way Acquisition Loan Funds (RALF), to acquire a vacant restaurant for the future construction of an off-ramp at this interchange, and another $1.6 million was invested in conjunction with Dakota County for the relocation of the 172nd Street intersection on the west side of the interchange. Reconstructing the interchange in combination with constructing additional travel lanes on Interstate 35 will provide the needed regional infrastructure to extend the METRO Orange Line along the interstate corridor, promoting new commercial and industrial development at County Roads 50 & 70, and encouraging additional job creation and tax base. D. Absentee Voting: As more and more voters choose to vote early with absentee balloting, improvements must be made to increase efficiency of administering absentee balloting before Election Day, reduce the potential for errors, and to improve voter experience. The City of Lakeville supports the following revisions to the absentee voting process: 1. Reviewing the current in-person absentee ballot process to determine if paper, electronic or a combination of the two processes would be more efficient and be preferable to voters. 2. Amending state statute to allow elections administrators to begin processing accepted absentee ballots when direct balloting begins at the beginning of the seventh day before Election Day and, subsequently, concluding the “claw back” period at the close of business the day before. 3. Increasing the time period that an in-person absentee voter can place their ballot directly into a tabulator from seven to 46 days. 4. Allowing alternative in-person absentee voting sites to be established for less than the full 46 days currently required by state law. E. Legislative Redistricting: As required due to the decennial census, the Minnesota Legislature is tasked with establishing legislative district boundaries that are consistent statewide based on population. Due to Lakeville’s residential development, our population growth has outpaced nearly every community in the state. Currently the city is split into three legislative districts, meaning that the city is represented by three state senators and six representatives. Due to the differing needs of Lakeville as compared to our neighboring communities, it is the City’s desire to have a more compact district that encompasses as much of Lakeville within one legislative district as possible. The city urges the legislature to take this into account as they establish new legislative boundaries that will be in place for the 2022 general election. 5 F. Expansion of Broadband Highspeed Internet: Access to high speed internet is essential for businesses and cities to compete in a global economy. Many commercial and residential areas within Lakeville do not have access to consistent and reliable broadband service. To promote economic development and to insure reliable highspeed broadband internet access the following steps should be implemented: 1. Fully fund the Border-to-Border Broadband Grant Program and continue to encourage public/private sector collaboration. 2. Support measures to authorize and encourage cities and other local units of government to play a direct role in providing broadband infrastructure and/or services. 3. Offer incentives to private sector service providers to respond to local or regional needs and to collaborate with cities and other public entities to deploy broadband infrastructure. 4. Remove barriers, restrict anti-competitive practices that prevent or impede cities, municipal utilities, schools, libraries, and other public sector entities from collaborating and deploying broadband infrastructure and services at the local and regional level. G. Storage of Railroad Cars within Urban Residential Areas: State and federal resources should be provided that will incentivize rail car storage areas within industrial areas and outside of residential neighborhoods. An active but little used section of freight railroad track runs through the City of Lakeville. The majority of the track runs through residential neighborhoods or is adjacent to residential homes. While the railroad track is classified as an active line, several sections are in poor condition and is only used for the storage of inactive rail cars. Expanding rail capacity within industrial areas has the potential to increase development opportunities and addresses the concerns of our residential property owners regarding safety and visual blight. H. Met Council Governance: The 17-member Metropolitan Council has 16 members, who represent geographic districts within the Twin Cities seven-county metropolitan area, with one member serving at large. However, they are all appointed by and serve at the pleasure of the Governor and typically fall within the current governor’s party affiliation. To provide a governance structure which is more representative of our respective communities, local governments (cities and counties) should be afforded an opportunity to provide input in the selection process for members who represent local interest in regional planning efforts. 6 Additional Legislative Priorities Local Control, Municipal Revenue & Taxation A. Expansion of Wine and Strong Beer Sales in Grocery/C-Stores: Lakeville opposes any legislation that would allow the expansion of the sale of wine and strong beer in grocery and convenience stores due to significant detrimental economic impacts on city revenues and the negative affect on preventing drunk driving and underage alcohol sales and consumption. Minnesota law allows grocery stores, gas stations, convenience stores and wherever beer is sold to sell 3.2 beer. Due to the same regulatory issues concerning regulation of alcohol and wine, "strong" beer (over 3.2%) can only be sold in exclusive liquor stores. If wine can be sold in grocery stores, there will be little to prevent them from eventually selling strong beer. B. Revenue Restrictions: The City of Lakeville strongly opposes levy limits and other financial restrictions imposed upon local governments. Local taxpayers hold their local elected officials accountable for local government spending and taxing decisions. When the state imposes levy limits, reverse referenda, or other fiscal restraints on local elected officials, it negatively impacts the ability of cities to meet the needs of their residents and removes the autonomy of local officials. C. Data Practices Act: The City of Lakeville supports common-sense changes to the Data Practices Act to protect municipalities from abusive or harassing requests, and to compensate municipalities for overly broad and burdensome requests. The Minnesota Government Data Practices Act was written before the widespread use of computers and other technology and has never been updated to reflect the exponential increase in the amount of data that every public and private entity must manage in order to conduct business. A single overly burdensome and broad request can cost a city hundreds of hours in staff time and tens of thousands of tax dollars to respond to, and the Act largely prohibits a city from recouping any of that cost. Further, some requests are made with the intent to harass a city and its employees, and some requesters never intend to collect the data, wasting time and tax dollars. D. Fiscal Disparity Fund Distribution: The City of Lakeville supports the Fiscal Disparities Program and any effort to modernize and improve the program to fund the needs of the metro area. E. Targeting Property Tax Relief Directly to Individuals: The City of Lakeville supports targeting property tax relief directly to individuals as opposed to direct aid programs like Local Government Aid (LGA), and believes that income, not property value, is the most appropriate measure of "ability to pay" property taxes. Lakeville supports additional property tax relief to those in greatest need by directing dollars to the circuit breaker program from programs such 7 as Local Government Aid (LGA). The circuit breaker income adjusted property tax relief program provides direct assistance to those homeowners in greatest need, whether or not those local homeowners reside in a city which receives direct aids from the State. Transportation A. Transportation System Improvement and Maintenance Funding: The City of Lakeville supports State efforts to bolster financial resources needed to address road, highway and freight rail improvements. The City of Lakeville also supports efforts to provide cities with adequate tools to fund maintenance and improvements to local roadways. Current levels of funding for roads and highways is inadequate to maintain existing road and highway needs and meet the needs of growing areas such as Lakeville. Lakeville recognizes the need for additional transportation funding statewide and will continue to advocate for additional resources to maintain the State’s transportation infrastructure. In addition, cities still lack the authority to use additional tools for City street improvements; such resources continue to be restricted to property taxes and special assessments. It is imperative that alternative authority be granted to municipalities for this purpose to relieve the burden on the property tax system. The City of Lakeville will be financing more than $29 million of street maintenance and reconstruction projects with property taxes over the next five years. Street maintenance and reconstruction projects will be the most significant contributing factors to future property tax increases. This is in addition to more than $35 million of project costs financed from other sources such as special assessments and municipal state-aid street funding. It is also important to recognize the existing freight rail system within the city and the need to address the storage of inactive railcars via a rail yard adjacent to Airlake Industrial Park. B. Dan Patch Commuter Rail Corridor: Lakeville is opposed to any State or Federal funding that supports the study, planning, design or engineering of the Dan Patch Corridor. Economic Development A. Tax Increment Financing (TIF): Cities need greater flexibility to use TIF for community and economic development that supports residents and businesses. Further restrictions of TIF would render the tool less effective and hinder local efforts to support job creation, housing and redevelopment. The Legislature should consider expanding the use of TIF to assist in the development of technological infrastructure and products, biotechnology, research, transportation and transit-oriented development, non-retail commercial projects, and modifying the various provisions of existing TIF law to better facilitate redevelopment and housing activities. 8 Housing A. City Role in Housing: The City values living options for people of all ages and stages of life. Lakeville strives to be a community where residents can live and age in place. Lakeville will accommodate individuals and families at all stages of life and strive to meet the housing, transportation, education, shopping, access to health care, and other needs of all demographic groups within the City. Funding for life cycle, workforce and attainable housing is the responsibility of State and Federal governments and should not be borne by local property taxpayers. In addition, the City opposes any mandated housing requirements. Cities can facilitate the production and preservation of life cycle, workforce and attainable housing by: • Applying for State or Federal funding from applicable grant and loan programs; • Working with developers and local residents to blend life cycle and attainable housing into new and existing neighborhoods; and • Establishing standards that encourage life cycle and attainable housing.