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Current Events
- If you or people in your area want to meet and discuss any topics on your mind, reach out to me and we will set up a time to visit.
- The Dayton Lions are planning a Music activity this fall, Sat Sept 9th in Central park. The band is XPEDITION. They're a Journey, Foreigner, Kansas, and Styx cover band. You can check them out HERE. Contact me if you have questions!
- Heritage days is planned for Sept 15-16 at Stephen's Park and the Old Village. The Lions and Dayton Community Foundation (DCF) is putting this on and the city will be a sponsor.
- The city has an opening on the planning commission. If you are interested, contact me or the city directly.
- The city is opening up a position for a part time (20 hours / week) activities director. Contact the city.
I was on vacation during this meeting but I did listen and will reflect my ideas here.
Work Session (Budget for 2024)
This was really a wrap up on all of the budget topics. I have previously given my opinion that a 26% increase in spending is not something I would be ok with. When a city grows, that new growth will and should pay for the new needs placed on the city by that growth. With our current numbers, that is looking like about a 16% increase.
What I heard from the discussion was there is support for some additional spending coming from the current tax base due to costs that have nothing to do with growth. Examples include inflation and Dayton taking on more police investigations (Hennepin County no longer does that service). I do agree that some of these costs are justified.
There was some discussion along the lines of "spend the money now so we don't spend it next year" which is nuts. If it's spent this year it's ALREADY spent next year. Yes it won't show up as new spending but that's because it's already there.
Coming up with reasons to increase spending is easy. All you have to do is look at spending from 2017 to 2020 where there was virtually no control.
That said, I think I'll be ok with the 16% plus some for inflation. I plan on giving staff my opinion which is 20%. Since our capacity is 26% that means our tax rate will drop a little, but your property values likely went up.
If you have questions about anything regarding how property taxes work such as tax capacity or tax rate, feel free to call me.
If you want to know individual member's outlook on taxes/spending, I would HIGHLY encourage you to watch these budget sessions. There's a clear separation.
Item J (Park Commission Update)
This was an update given by the Parks Commission Chair and he talked a little about each of the current parks projects going.
Item K (Quarterly Update)
Every quarter our Administrator goes over the current state of the various funds. As usual there were no surprises. It's becoming very clear though that development is down significantly and my guess is it'll stay down at least well into next year... Another reason to watch what we spend.
Item L (Additional item added, change order to West French Lake)
Due to all of the construction traffic on West French Lake, there is a section from the Parkway to just past the intersection of East and West French Lake Roads. This possibility came up months back prior to the construction but it was just a matter of waiting to see how much damage was done. That's now complete and it's looking like the road will need some reclamation and rebuilding at a cost of about $170k some of which will be paid for by Graco due to our agreements with them.
Feel free to contact me with your opinions, ideas, or questions.