votewojcik.org

• DMC Approved, Thank you Tina, Kim, Dave (bipartisan thank you), Ann, Rod, “other” Tina and on and on.  And of course Mark…
• Surrounding communities get $5 million, city does meet in cousultation with surrounding communities as promised by the meet Common Cents committee.
• Some folks ain’t so good at math…
• Parking lot goes in on 2nd street, city maintains ability to terminate parking lot after 5 years.

What an amazing video! People prioritizing a library over taxes! Just remember our library lost a battle against the tea party. But I continue the fight.

I don’t want Rochester to ever forget that we have the busiest library in the state of Minnesota. The city council asked for an expansion to be part of our sales tax proposal only to have Rep. Greg Davids and the Tea Party legislators remove it, against the will of Rochester at the state level. We will have fixed this injustice when we restore the funding for this needed and worthy project.

A quick look at the numbers below might suggest that the state values the Mayo Clinic far less than professional sports. The DMC project has far better leverage of public dollars, but despite that… Citizens of Rochester get smacked much harder than other tax bases. That said, at least the authority makeup and oversight is respectable in the house bill unlike that of the senate.

Disclosure: many number from wikipedia, so, um, you know…

Edit: I’m happy to update numbers or add other projects if you have the figures.

I have just about beaten this thing to death, here are some new thoughts.

Tina pays taxes in Rochester and I think that she is bothered by the potential of wasting $5 million, that she took action.  She did so knowing full well that this would be unpopular.  I think her actual bill is a good compromise because it draws attention, but is unlikely change the end result.

“What I am doing here is letting the city council make the decision. If I was on the city council, I would vote no. But I think that’s a decision that they, as local officials, should be making,” she said.

Second, If I represented Stewartville I would handle this very differently.  I took an oath to work for Rochester, allowing the wasting of money on foolish projects is violation of that oath.  If I represented Stewartville, or if Tina did, comments would likely be different.

Third, the hypocrisy of the Chamber of Commerce who refused to stand with Rochester when the state cut promised LGA to Rochester suddenly getting religion on the state keeping promises is disappointing.  The argument that proposed uses are within the law ignores the fact that no laws exist, because this was a maneuver by Greg Davids at the last minute.  No one ever considered this, so no real laws exist.  As I stated before the Chamber’s policy is pro-sprawl, pro-developer subsidy, and pro-redistributionism.

Forth, I am less concerned about sharing the dollars than I am about the dollars being wasted.  Stewartville’s builder / developer giveaway is the perfect example of using public dollars to benefit a few individuals with no net regional benefit.  I wish this proposed law required all projects to create net region wide economic development and prevented competition between cities sharing this money.

Fifth, I will track how all $5 million is spent, thus far Pine Island and Stewartville are proposing wasteful spending.  Kasson on the other hand in contributing a similar amount to DMC.  I hope that most of this money is not wasted.  I would ask every community to ask them selves, is our proposed use better or worse than DMC.  If they can not create proposals that are superior to DMC, they should support that instead.

Edit:  whew… spell check is working again, that was scary…

First of all, most of the money going into the Rochester sales tax comes from residents outside the city of Rochester

-Rep. Greg Davids via Rochester Post Bulletin

The problem is this statement is complete false.  I wonder why no one holds Rep. Davids accountable for this?

Here are some other reasons we need to address the current situation where by the public stands to throw away up to $5 million for no discernible gain.  I could live with sharing $5 million, I can’t live with wasting $5 million.  Based on early returns, that is what we are set to do.

We need some accountability added to these dollars!

Read the rest of this entry »

Topics:
Emmy
Civility
Senior Center / Rec Center
Urban Design
Billboards

I voted against staff’s plan to authorize $5 million in distributions to surrounding communities but lost the decision by a 5-1 ( ) vote.  I think this decision represents bad policy and bad finance.  Here is why.  I’m not necessarily against regional investments, but the way this was done was underhanded, incompetent, and inconsistent.  Rep. Greg Davids is the individual most responsible for the poor policy.  Read the rest of this entry »

Friends, Colleagues and Fellow Citizens:

What am I hearing after over 70 presentations that Common Cents has done?  There continues to be increasing support for renewing the ½ cent local sales tax.  The audiences have been great, very responsive to our message and excited about the community continuing to move forward.  It really is looking to our future, and I’m proud of that message, a legacy for our growing and maturing community. Read the rest of this entry »

Friends, Colleagues and Fellow Citizens:

In my last message (#5), I asked the question, “What kind of city do we want to be?”  Answering that question certainly goes beyond renewing our local ½ cent sales tax, but I also think the renewal is a big part of the answer. Read the rest of this entry »

Friends, Colleagues and Fellow Citizens:

As I continue to speak to many groups around the community, I am still heartened by the strong feelings of support for renewing our ½ cent local sales tax.  People often talk about a desire to “set the table,” as one person told me, for our future.  He’s right because renewing this very small tax will allow the city to continue moving forward in a positive direction and not merely stand still waiting for the future to just happen. Read the rest of this entry »