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Gem Lake City Council Meeting Page 2 of 5 September Newsletter: Councilmember Artig-Swomley stated that she had a few topics for the newsletter. • Review of National Night Out • The Budget for 2013 • Crime in Gem Lake this past month. • The MS4 Report that Councilmember Lindner will present at the September City Council meeting. • Who is running for the 2013 election. The passing of the Chicken/Fowl Ordinance. • Mayor Uzpen received a letter from Xcel Energy stating they are going to be running new power lines in Gem Lake and Mayor Uzpen had a map of the areas they are going to be working on. Mayor Uzpen suggested putting this information in the newsletter so the property owners are aware of the work being done. The project will be finished in 2014. Mayor Uzpen met with Justin Gese from SEH so he is aware of what is going on. PUBLIC HEARING None NEW BUSINESS 2013 Preliminary Budget Discussion: Mayor Uzpen and Tom Kelly, Gem Lake Treasurer from White Bear Township presented to the City Council the budget for 2013. Mr. Kelly pointed out that at this point the City of Gem Lake has a balanced budget for the general budget. There are no reserves coming out of the general budget. There are changes in the Sherriff's budget with the extra patrol from the Sherriff department and from animal control. At this point Mr. Kelly has no numbers of what the budget will be for the fire service from White Bear Lake. Road and snow removal numbers were left the same as 2012. Because of the transfers that was done in the past, the general fund does not show any transfers for road improvements and trees. In the debt funds, Gem Lake still has a debt levy for 2013 of $52,000 for the capital improvement that paid for Heritage Hall. The County had a meeting with all the Finance Directors and handed out the tax information. The City of Gem Lake tax capacity did decrease down to $912, 000. The County Assessor did say that values on residential and commercial properties for the next year are still decreasing, but he expects 2014 will level off. Based on the levy, Mr. Kelly put together what Gem Lake's estimated tax rate would be. This preliminary levy using the County Assessor figures for a medium value home in Gem Lake would have a tax bill around $900. Mayor Uzpen would like to see the comparison of the tax capacity for last year compared to the tax capacity for 2013. The City Council will work to reduce variable expenses and reduce the tax rate, (if possible) to the 25% or 26% range instead of 40%. Mayor Uzpen asked that the Newsletter article reflect the fact that even if the city Look for us on the World Wide Web at gemlakemn.org