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Furthermore, these roads, including Fairview Avenue to the north are residential <br />neighborhoods, neighborhoods the City Council and City Government should be working <br />to protect and enhance rather than degrade and destroy with wider streets and increased <br />traffic. <br />Now, the City Council, nearly 30 years after this Parkway was designed, is planning to <br />increase our debt service by moving to acquire a portion of land to open the proposed <br />Parkway to Fairview. This is not based on need. There is no development planned at this <br />time save the hotel and the Park and Ride along Cleveland Avenue. McGough owns the <br />interior site which has access both at the end of the present Parkway development and <br />across its own property to Fairview Avenue. There is no need for the City to provide any <br />further work. In fact, the initial plan proposed by McGough did not favor the <br />continuation of Twin Lakes Parkway beyond the edge of the property thus providing <br />access to the site from Cleveland and 35W without having the development plans altered <br />by preexisting roadways. The Hagen property being proposed for purchase will divide <br />the Hagen parcel actually limiting its potential development and use. Again, it presently <br />has excellent access to Fairview Avenue before Fairview goes north into residential <br />neighborhoods. The City has no need to provide additional access to either of these <br />existing parcels. <br />If and when either of these sites have firm and accepted plans and development <br />proposals, decisions about the future of the Parkway should be made. These decisions <br />should not be made now. There are no plans for any further development. We have the <br />reality of a floundering economy and a city struggling with rising expenses and shrinking <br />revenues. This is not "a field of dreams" and we are in no position to pretend that it is. <br />There is no need to purchase the Hagen pazcel. The City's position has always been to <br />keep hands off development and in this case it should be continued. To purchase a <br />portion of the Hagen parcel for the continuation of Twin Lakes Pazkway is certainly not <br />in the best interest of Roseville or it residents. In fact, it stands to simply provide <br />additional expenses for the creation and continued maintenance of the Parkway and <br />revenue reductions due to the degradation of the residential neighborhoods to the north <br />along Fairview Avenue. <br />This discussion flows seamlessly into our current budget fiasco. To date there has been <br />no proposed budget available to the public. If one has been provided to the Council it <br />should have been made available to the residents. What passed as a budget prior to the <br />aborted "hearings" last month was the worst I have seen in the last 20 years or more. <br />The staff and Council would only have to look back some 10 years to so to see what a <br />budget should look like. A budget should tell us where we have been and what we have <br />spent. It should tell us what our specific unchanging obligations are for the coming year. <br />It should provide as accurate as possible estimate of potential revenues. It should then <br />provide a listing of those items, in some prioritized manner, which could be handled <br />should monies be available. And, in this economy and with a very large portion of our <br />population on a fixed income that is not increasing at all for the next two years, any <br />additional spending should be looked at very carefully. <br />2 <br />