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| Post Number: 11
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Nose for News
Unregistered
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Posted on: Jan. 19 2004,10:55 am |
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One man in Mankato is changing the way business is being done.
We can also change things here.
Take control of our own destiny.
Remove incompetence.
webster: Incompetent 1:not legally qualified 2:inadequate to or unsuitable for a particular purpose 3:lacking
the qualities needed for effective action b;unable to function properly
Port Authority - Decisions carry risk
Part 1 of 3
By Dan Nienaber
Free Press Staff Writer
NORTH MANKATO — Jim Hughes clearly remembers when he first started asking questions about the North Mankato Port Authority, its purpose and its powers.
Pat Christman
Jim Hughes of North Mankato has been a critic of the North Mankato Port Authority, questioning, among other things, whether it follows state laws when conducting business. A citizens committee he served on found there was a solid base to his questions.
It was around the time houses started disappearing from his Wheeler Avenue neighborhood.
The Port Authority was preparing the former Marigold Dairy site for a downtown hotel project between Wheeler and Belgrade avenues. Houses just down the street from Hughes’ home in the 200 block of Wheeler were being demolished or moved to make room for the new hotel.
“When houses start moving off your block, it’s natural to start asking the five W’s: who, what, when, why and where,” he said.
The Port Authority — whose seven members are appointed by the City Council and include two council members— controls a large amount of public money and property. It has more than $16 million in assets, including the library, police annex and hilltop fire station buildings it leases to the city. It also owns 52 acres of prime development land, worth more than $2 million, in its industrial park.
A citizens committee formed to review Port Authority activities recently found the North Mankato body was “not in compliance” with several state statutes and many of its own bylaws. The committee also made 13 recommendations on how to improve its operation.
A requirement that the Port Authority hold public hearings before selling land was the most serious example of noncompliance with state statutes. It already has changed its practices to comply.
Taxpayers at risk
Taxpayers are responsible for millions of dollars the Port Authority has borrowed in their name, meaning taxpayers will pay if the Port Authority fails its obligations.
The possibility of having to use property-tax money to pay for Port Authority mistakes increased last year. Two failed projects, including the one in Hughes’ neighborhood, have left the Port Authority with big payments to make.
The Port Authority is now paying for more than $700,000 in property improvements made for a hotel that was never built and nearly $800,000 it owes for a grocery building it no longer owns. The total payoff for both bonds is about $4.8 million over 15 to 20 years.
That adds up to well over $480 for every man, woman and child in the city of just more than 10,000 people.
If all of the money had to be paid back with additional property taxes, the North Mankato tax levy would go up by about 7 percent. Taxes on a $150,000 home in North Mankato could go up about $25 per year.
Port Authority officials say that’s unlikely and say a developer has expressed interest in the hotel site.
They also point to successful projects in the Port Authority’s industrial park, which have created jobs and garnered hundreds of thousands of dollars in property taxes. The Port Authority has also helped other businesses with its revolving-loan fund.
Port Authority officials say it’s necessary to take some risks in the effort to promote economic development.
At least one development expert says such risks can be mitigated and aren’t a necessity.
Craig Waldron, Oakdale city administrator, has handled numerous economic development deals for his city and was the featured speaker at a forum in North Mankato last fall.
Waldron said he wouldn’t get Oakdale taxpayers into a similar situation. He would have required a letter of credit to guarantee one or two years of payments for each of the projects. And he would have structured the deals so the developers would be required to pay if the taxes or income wasn’t there to make bond payments.
Another economic development expert, Jack Geller at the Center for Rural Policy and Development in St. Peter, says North Mankato shouldn’t have been in retail trade, such as a grocery business, at all.
“Why would you use public dollars to favor one business over another business?” Geller said. “I don’t understand the logic in that.”
Asking tough questions
But Hughes said he’s had a hard time getting his questions answered about successful projects as well as the hotel project. That led Hughes to ask the North Mankato City Council to request a state audit of its economic development arm.
The audit wasn’t approved, but the council did form a committee, of which Hughes was a member, to take a closer look at Port Authority records and make an audit recommendation. Despite finding several examples where the Port Authority doesn’t abide by state statutes regulating its activities or its own bylaws, the committee voted against recommending an audit.
Hughes was the only person on the five-member committee to vote in favor of an audit.
“Every dollar they spend, every dollar they accrue is public money,” Hughes said.
“And they have the authority to use it because they’re the most legislatively powerful economic development unit in the state.
“But it’s not what they’re doing, it’s are they doing it in accordance with the law?”
Hughes found there wasn’t much state officials could do about a lack of compliance. The laws include few provisions for enforcement and state officials want to avoid influencing local development decisions.
State officials say they have five staff members to oversee grants to some 800 cities in Minnesota. The public, officials said, needs to help them make sure the money is being spent for the intended purposes.
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| Post Number: 12
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Nose for News
Unregistered
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Posted on: Jan. 28 2004,11:56 am |
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Update. We can learn from this. Just ask the right questions.
It would be interesting to see Albert Lea's projects and $$$ from the last 15 years?
Paul Moe, director of business finance for Minnesota DEED is in charge of issuing the grants and overseeing the money as it's loaned out by the Port Authoritys.
His staff oversees the economic development subsidies issued by more than 800 cities in Minnesota. http://www.deed.state.mn.us/
January 20th, 2004
'Public money' on the line
By Dan Nienaber
Free Press Staff Writer
NORTH MANKATO — When Bob Knutson, one of the North Mankato Port Authority's seven members, stood before a crowd of North Mankato residents at a City Council meeting and said no taxpayer dollars were going to the Port Authority, some North Mankato residents disagreed.
Wayne Comstock said it reminded him of a "spin zone."
Of course, Knutson never said Port Authority money isn't "public money." But, during comments he made at a North Mankato City Council meeting in September, Knutson did say - over and over - that Port Authority dollars are not "taxpayer dollars."
Bill Schindle, a North Mankato councilman who also serves on the Port Authority, used the same language moments later when he confronted Comstock about his comments.
"Wayne, I'm telling you, it was said that tax dollars are going into these projects and Mr. Knutson stood up and explained that they're not," Schindle said.
Minnesota lawmakers have put it in writing. "Port Authority money is public money," says statute 469.051, subdivision 7.
More importantly, those same statutes also give port authorities the ability to have cities levy taxes for them. "A city shall, at the request of the port authority, levy a tax in any year for the benefit of the port authority," says statute 469.053, subdivision 4.
During its 15 years of existence, the Port Authority has been involved in 42 economic development projects, Knutson told the council.
"During that period of time, we have never ever used taxpayer dollars," he said. "And we don't anticipate using taxpayer dollars in the future."
In his first reference to taxpayer dollars, Knutson referred specifically to property taxes. He later said that he meant local property taxes in all of his references to "taxpayer dollars."
And it's only partially true the Port Authority doesn't make direct use of money raised through property taxes for its projects.
It has used city employees and city equipment for its projects, including its controversial hotel and grocery developments. City employees are paid and city equipment is bought with funds raised through property taxes.
It would be difficult for the city to keep track of employee time and other city expenses used for the Port Authority projects or administration, said North Mankato Finance Director Steve Mork.
How the Port Authority affects you
• North Mankato taxpayers would be legally bound to pay some if not many of the Port Authority’s bills should the Port Authority not be able to pay them. Those bills total about $4.8 million right now, a sum equal to 141 percent of the 2004 North Mankato tax levy (the amount raised through taxes). The bills can be paid over a 15- to 20-year period.
• A levy increase to pay the bills of the Port Authority, if needed, would increase taxes by about $25 per year on a $150,000 home in North Mankato, according to a Free Press analysis.
• Two failed projects make the risk of paying off those bills higher this year, and a plan to pay those bills carries risks of its own. The Port Authority would have to sell 50 acres of development land for an average of $40,000 an acre during the next five to 15 years to pay for these bills.
• The Port Authority has sold 50 acres of land at about $30,000 per acre during the past several years.
• Although the Port Authority has garnered nearly $1 million in state and federal funds, the state does not actively monitor how the money has been spent and has little enforcement power to make sure the money is spent according to the law.
• A citizens committee found seven examples where the Port Authority was not in compliance with state statutes and was not following several of its own bylaws.
• State law says cities “shall at the request of the port authority, levy a tax in any year for the benefit of the port authority.”
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| Post Number: 13
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Liberal 
Group: Moderator
Posts: 11451
Joined: Aug. 2003
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Posted on: Feb. 01 2004,4:00 pm |
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Port Authority money is public money," says statute 469.051, subdivision 7 and since it is public money the Port Authority is a public board and every public board is bound by the Minnesota open meeting law. Think about how stupid this is, this is a public board thinking they can simply convene under a different name and somehow they will not be bound by the open meeting law as the port authority board anymore.
You would think after running the puppet show at city hall for nearly 30 years Paul would know the law. If you have a quorum of PA board members anywhere except the PA meeting then you are in violation of the open meeting law no matter what you talk about. Having meetings with less than a quorum may even be a violation of the law if you have serial meetings and discuss any PA business.
Maybe the Tribune can look into this. If our editor needs any advice on what to do she should just call the Globe Gazette editor.
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The people are masters of both Congress and courts, not to overthrow the Constitution, but to overthrow the men who pervert it!
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| Post Number: 14
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jimhanson
Group: Moderator
Posts: 8491
Joined: Aug. 2003
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Posted on: Feb. 01 2004,4:54 pm |
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From the managing editor of the Tribune, today | Quote | | I encourage everyone who reads The Tribune to take a look at their lives and the people they know and say: I'm going to let the newspaper know about this activity or that person from my own little world. |
| Quote | | How newspapers accomplish that when faced with some of the realities of the business is where the struggle comes. A limited number of staff is perhaps the greatest challenge. Realistically, it is impossible for six people to cover every corner, every event, every meeting conducted in a town the size of Albert Lea. With a population of roughly 18,300 people, that means each reporter would have to cover the doings of 3,050 people, whose various activities could keep those reporters from sleeping - ever. |
I'm taking her at her word, and forwarding the link to this Forum.
Sure beats Dylan's approach--sending a reporter to "hang around the courthouse" in a trenchcoat!  ("Old Tribune sarcasm!)
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"If you want to anger a Conservative, tell him a lie. If you want to anger a LIBERAL, tell him the TRUTH!"
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