CC_Minutes_2012_0924 - Laserfiche WebLink

Home

Regular City Council Meeting Monday, September 24, 2012 Page 26 City's parks, she also loved having water and sewer service better; and this was a reality that Roseville needed to address. Councilmember McGehee opined that building a community center for everyone to use made more sense than building, maintaining and attempting to staff facilities in pocket neighborhoods; however, she noted that this would have most certainly required a referendum. On the topic of a referendum, Councilmember McGehee noted that she had looked at the original proposal for the Parks Master Plan completed prior to 2010, and it specifically spoke of a referendum, with memoranda from Mr. Brokke outline a schedule and deadlines to get things on the ballot for a refer- endum. While educating the public appeared to be the original intent, Coun- cilmember McGehee opined that out of nowhere, the idea to not educate or in- volve the public appeared and this was rammed down everyone's throats; and she thought it was wrong. Over her 1.5 year tenure on the City Council, Coun- cilmember McGehee opined that nothing had been done to increase the revenue stream; and as pointed out by Councilmember Pust with 42-45% of students re- ceiving free or reduced cost lunches, how were those families supposed to sup- port all of the amenities the City Council majority thought were needed or wanted while not increasing that revenue stream. Councilmember McGehee opined that this didn't make sense to her; and questioned if the City was really committed to moving forward and maintaining parks in the future the way they should be, by mowing the grass, keeping ball fields maintained, and staying quiet without a major expansion program at this time. With the upcoming election, and the court not actually hearing any argument to base their opinion on, Councilmember McGehee noted the court's suggestion to simply throw the bums out, noting that this was the current City Council, which may not be bad advice with new people running for the City Council. Coun- cilmember McGehee opined that this was a huge thing, and the options were to authorize a referendum right now or simply wait until a new City Council was elected and have a referendum on this entire idea, rather than saddling a new City Council with that the responsibility for that debt. Mayor Roe stated that, as he originally said last October, generally speaking a referendum made sense when spending significant capital money in the com- munity. However, Mayor Roe clarified that the action that addressed infrastructure fund- ing and increased utility rates was for the purpose of eliminating that problem going forward and not just to reduce the deficit from $66 million to $44 million over a twenty(20)-year period. Mayor Roe noted that that particular action was voted on without public referendum. Mayor Roe noted that during that same timeframe, the proposed bond issue would be paid off, actually with a projected term of fifteen (15) years, and that same $40 million annually in future Rose- ville budgets would be sought from Roseville taxpayers without a referendum,