[Southsider2k12]

http://www.nwitimes.com/news/local/laporte...campaign=LEEDCC

MICHIGAN CITY — Officials in the city are taking a hard look at imposing a fee to eliminate standing water problems in the city and improve stormwater capacity for future growth.

A public workshop is scheduled for 5 p.m. Tuesday at City Hall to discuss creating what could be a monthly fee of about $11 for residential property owners.

Mayor Ron Meer said the fee would be higher for businesses, which would be based on factors like property size.

Meer said about $2 million a year would be generated for things like new infrastructure to help drainage in areas like the historic Eastport neighborhood on the north end and areas to the south.

The city's sanitary district board has already given its blessing to the fee, which must be approved by the City Council to take effect.

More at link

[Southsider2k12]

If this happens, every homeowner will see about a $140 per year increase in their property taxes, and not their water bill. Secondary home owners and business owners will see much larger increases.

[exsteel5]

If this happens, every homeowner will see about a $140 per year increase in their property taxes, and not their water bill. Secondary home owners and business owners will see much larger increases.

What a scam!!!! Thank you Mayor Meer. This proposed rate is the HIGHEST in the state. If this is approved it will be the one thing I will remember at the ballot box. We have the Riverboat for capital projects like the ones that were presented. What a bunch of bungling idiots.

[Tim]

Are they increasing their services?

[Southsider2k12]

Are they increasing their services?

No. In fact they are going to do things they promised to do with the last rate increase that apparently were never done and no one is going to be held accountable for.

[taxthedeer]

This fee is totally ridiculous. The fee would be $11.90 per parcel. Mt backyard is a separate vacant parcel that had an old house on it that was torn down years ago. I would have to pay the fee on both the parcel my house is on and my vacant backyard parcel.

They need to quit telling us that the communities like Hammond, Merrillville and East Chicago already have these fees and taxes in place. If I wanted to pay the rates that Lake County residents pay I would have moved over there years ago.

[Southsider2k12]

This fee has been killed off and won't be voted on.

[Southsider2k12]

I had been doing some research on the proposed Drainage Fee that was being talked about in Michigan City before the proposal was abruptly cancelled by the Mayor's Office. Because of the cancellation I never got to offer my opinion on it, but I wanted to just in case it resurfaced at a future date.

First off I will say that I understand the goal and scope of the project that this tax increase was supposed to fund. The modernization and of our sanitation system should have a high priority, so as to not fall into a trap of having substandard living conditions in the future. The idea of the fee is a tough one as with the market this fee was being proposed here would have been a pretty big hit for much of the local community that sits at or below poverty level and struggles paycheck to paycheck to get by. For someone who is in $60,000 house locally, this increase would have seen their property tax bill go up by about 20-25% on average. While much of the community lives in more expensive housing, a good portion of the town has assessed values in that neighborhood, many are even lower meaning the increase would be an even higher percentage to them. The worst part is that if they decided they couldn't afford to pay that fee, yet still paid their property taxes, they houses could have been seized and sold by the county to satisfy their obligation to this fee. People could loses their houses because of this project, and to me that is unacceptable. If the priority here needs to be high enough for this project, the City needs to look at some of the other amounts of spending it has done and re-prioritize spending. Look no further than the millions of dollars it is looking to dump into another plaza that amounts to nothing more than a gift to the north Franklin business community, while putting its residents on notice for higher taxes.

If a bond issue becomes necessary for this project the City must re-examine its current and special spending areas, and re-prioritize other budget areas before asking its residents to assume a higher burden. If sacrifice is necessary, it should be done intelligently and recognize that such a high portion of spending does not directly benefits residents already and those should be the dollars that first are brought back to benefit the City residents. It is a quality of life consideration and should be a higher priority than a new park or plaza to benefit business and tourism.

Finally the part of this debate that has been largely neglected is that we already had a tax increase years back to fund capital improvements to the sanitary systems locally. That project got to a certain point and then stopped. My question is what accountability has taken place for the failure of that project to be completed and what is being done as those funds are still being collected to this day? That rate increase has never gone away, so where is that money going? If nothing has been done about this past project, how can we trust that the City will do with these tax dollars what they are saying needs to be done. I will say I have no level of trust because of this history. Until there is some accountability publicly for the failure of this project, I can't support any future increases.