Thursday, May 25, 2006

Lakefront Summit is a success

The Lakefront Summit was well worth the time. It was great to hear our residents voice support for this process promoted by our Park District. Many residents voiced their support for improvements and preservation of our shoreline. There were many great speakers that educated us on many activities, regulatory agencies, and visions of the future. If you missed it, look on the Park District website for information on the Summit and the continuing process.

Saturday, May 13, 2006

"On The Table" is back online

I know it has been a while since I sent out a newsletter and had promised the big switch over to a blog. Well... here we are and I am ready to take the heat again. Hope you enjoy this reading and when I get more up to speed on the ways to connect to this blog for automatic sendings I will convey that information to you. For those of you that can connect this to your email I believe it does transmit in xml format.

Friday, May 12, 2006

Enjoy Lake Michigan

I have asked staff to inventory our city streets that dead end on the lake. We might be able to provide pedestrian views in several neighborhoods and maybe a park bench to enjoy this beautiful resource.

New Stormwater Fee on your water bill

Taxes....
We recently passed our 2006-7 budget that included a 0% increase in our real estate taxes. WOW!... How did they do that! This accomplishment was not done however without increasing non discretionary fees to replace a minimal tax increase. To pay for increased costs of payroll and benefits for employees we created a new fee for stormwater and increased a few other fees.

With the eggshell game in full swing all residents will see this new stormwater fee on their water bills but it won't be deductible on their income taxes and will not be based on value of your real estate. While I did vote for the balanced budget, I objected to this exchange as a regular practice and suggested we might have been better served with a minimal tax increase instead.