Detroit Lakes city council approves 11.22% maximum preliminary tax levy
Detroit Lakes, Minn. (KDLM) – The Detroit Lakes city council approved an 11.22% maximum property tax levy increase for 2024 on Tuesday evening.
The preliminary levy passed by the council may be decreased by the end of the year, but it cannot get any larger.
If no changes are made, the city’s budget for 2024 will be $25.9 million separated into different funds and the property tax levy will raise $8.1 million in revenue.
Heidi Tumberg, finance officer for Detroit Lakes, told councilmembers what the additional levy dollars would be bringing to the city.
“We added some additional funding for street maintenance, for some street rehabilitation projects that we have planned over the next couple of years,” said Tumberg. “There is one new police officer that is planned in this budget. We have included some additional funding for some park equipment … and there are a few different things that are funded in here. With the DLCCC, with their request, we are funding the replacement of their roof through some capital contributions through a loan forgiveness with the public utilities commission and some additional funding from the liquor fund.”
The 2024 budget will also create a new economic development director position for the city, who will be charged with implementing a business retention and expansion program as well as serve as a liaison to the city’s development authority.
She also told councilmembers she is forecasting the city’s tax rate will decrease next year because home values, on average, have increased more than the proposed levy increase.
“If our levy increase is 11.22%, and our property value increase is more than that, our tax rate ends up coming down,” she said. “In 2023, our tax rate is 40.324% and I’m projecting next year with this preliminary budget and levy, that would come down to 39.149%.”
Detroit Lakes residents will have the opportunity to voice their tax levy concerns to the city council during a public hearing on Dec. 12 at 6:00 p.m. with the council expected to take action on the final property tax levy following the hearing.
Woman killed in pedestrian-vehicle crash in Fargo on Wednesday
A woman is dead after being struck by a vehicle in an early Wednesday morning crash on 13th Avenue South in Fargo.
The crash happened around 5:50 a.m. at the intersection of 13th Avenue S. and 32nd St.
Authorities say a 68-year-old woman was in the marked crosswalk, crossing at 13th Ave., when she was hit by a westbound pickup truck, driven by a 63-year-old man, which was in the middle of the three traffic lanes.
The driver of the pickup was uninjured.
The crash remains under investigation by the North Dakota Highway Patrol.
Fargo Fire, Sanford Ambulance, the Cass County Coroner’s Office, and the Fargo Police Department also responded to the scene.
The intersection was closed until about 10 a.m. Wednesday as the officials conducted a crash scene reconstruction.
Detroit Lakes approves new four-way stop and portable speed radars
The Detroit Lakes city council approved two public safety items on Tuesday in an attempt to make city streets a little bit safer.
Councilmembers approved a new four-way stop at the Summit Avenue and Holmes Street intersection near the Detroit Lakes Community and Cultural Center.
The intersection had previously been a two-way stop on Holmes Street and shifted to a temporary four-way during the Summit Avenue road project.
In discussions with the city’s public safety committee, Ron Zeman, alderman first ward, said the city engineer told the committee the intersection had enough crash incidents to warrant keeping the intersection a four-way stop after construction concludes in coming weeks.
“Jon (Pratt) he went back and did a study and there has been enough accidents that meets the need for a four-way stop,” said Zeman. “And he’s recommending we put in a four-way stop and the (public safety) committee agreed with him and I so move that we go ahead with the four-way stop.”
The four-way stop was approved on a 7-1 vote with Matt Boeke, alderman third ward, voting against the measure. Wendy Spry, alderman at-large, was absent at the meeting and did not cast a vote.
The council also approved the use of two portable speed radar systems on South Shore Drive in an effort to reduce the number of speeding vehicles on the southside of the lake.
Jon Pratt, city engineer for Detroit Lakes, said not only will the speeds be displayed to the drivers, which should decrease speeds, but the systems will also collect some data so the city has better data on traffic flow on the southside of the lake.
“The city does have two portable radar signs and those have proven to be fairly effective in terms of dealing with speed compliance,” said Pratt. “And the other advantage is that those signs actually collect data that we can download from and try to get a handle on how much of a problem, or if there is a problem in terms of speeding and what the compliance rate is. So that seems like a logical first step and I think that’s what the committee was going to recommend as an initial step.”
He also said, while other options for are also being considered, the portable radars should make an impact on reducing vehicle speeds.
DLCCC budget and rates approved by city council after criticism
The Detroit Lakes Community and Cultural Center received approval for their 2024 budget and rates from the Detroit Lakes city council on Tuesday, but not until after some members told the DLCCC’s chief executive officer they needed to start covering more of their costs from their own revenue streams.
As part of the city’s budget, the city is planning to forgive $560,000 remaining on the DLCCC’s $1.1 million loan from Detroit Lakes’ public utility funds. The freed up funds are to be used to pay for a portion of the center’s roof replacement, which will be completed in sections in coming years.
Ron Zeman, alderman first ward, said the loan forgiveness isn’t fair to Detroit Lakes taxpayers.
“One of the proposals that’s helped the DLCCC is to forgive that ($560,000),” said Zeman. “And I don’t think that’s fair to the taxpayers of Detroit Lakes to have that loan forgiven. Because there’s a lot of people who’d like to see that used to get there electric rates to go down.”
He also said he wants the city council to sit down with the DLCCC Board of Directors to figure out a way to make the community center self-sufficient without relying on additional city dollars every year.
“After 20 years of operation at the DLCCC, it is time to fix the financial problems that we’ve had” he said. “For 19 years I’ve sat here at this council table and had the DLCCC come, and never once have they said, ‘we don’t need help.’ Every year the DLCCC expects help from the electric utilities and it’s become a habit now … I just feel we can’t really continue and I can’t really support reducing this $560,000 unless we have a condition that the city council sits down with you board of directors to try and figure out a way to make that place operate without having to come to the public utilities or the liquor store every year to balance.”
Peter Jacobson, CEO of the DLCCC, said the center experienced an 8% increase in memberships over the past year, but they are still between 1-5% lower from their pre-COVID membership numbers.
One of the highlights, he added, was an increase in the DLCCC’s Engage program for seniors, which hold between 300 to 400 active members that participate in biking, hiking, or other outings together.
“Over the last four years, they’ve really transformed from doing primarily, sedentary things to really a whole new group of people that are hiking, and biking, and taking part in cultural activities, and social activities and really changing the quality of life” said Jacobson. “I get calls frequently from other communities that are interested in what we’re doing in Detroit Lakes because we have a fabulous engage program and fabulous staff that help run that.”
He also said he doesn’t want the DLCCC to be compared to Detroit Country Club or Detroit Mountain, which are other city-owned properties managed by third-parties, because they are wholly different operations with different revenue streams and challenges.
“I prefer that we didn’t get compared to (Detroit Mountain) or the gold course, but rather to other community centers across the state,” he said. “My research shows that in most cases where it’s an enterprise fund of the city, the city ends up funding all of the capital and a fairly substantial amount of operations. So that’s part of the reason I think we have a nice model here because it allows some freedom to explore opportunities and innovate and provide the best services that we can. But I don’t want you to take my word for it, I would encourage you to go out, do the research, find out what you see from other community centers and then hold us to the highest standards of those other locations.”
The 2024 DLCCC budget projects $2.6 million in revenue with $2.2 million in expenses before depreciation and other non-operating expenses are taking into account. The center anticipates a negative net income of more than $43,000.
Earned revenue for the DLCCC accounts for 82% of their total revenue with 18% coming from contributed revenue sources.
Economist sees delayed recession on horizon
A Midwest economist says between high interest rates and soaring credit card debt, it won’t be near what we saw in 2008, but he sees the signals a delayed recession is on the horizon.
Creighton University economist Ernie Goss says: “This is the longest period since 1955 that we’ve had the Fed pushing rates up like this and we didn’t see a recession, so it’s coming due. I think the last quarter of this year or the first quarter of next year.”
The Federal Reserve has raised interest rates eleven times, totaling 5.25 percentage points, since March 2022 to tame inflation.
Goss says the Fed could be setting the economy up for a monetary tightening cycle known as a “soft landing,” like what happened in the mid-1990s following the Gulf War Recession.
He also points to high oil prices and students having to pay back loans as reasons for belt tightening in the coming months.
People have also been living off plastic, with credit card debt now at $1 trillion.
The Federal Open Market Committee’s next meeting is September 19th and 20th. Whether another interest rate hike is coming is up in the air, as experts say it could be skipped this time, but it doesn’t mean the hikes are done. It depends on how close inflation is to the 2% target rate.
The Consumer Price Index is predicted to reach 3.6% for August, up from 3.2% in July.
Story by Jennifer Lewerenz / KNSI
North Dakota Sheriff’s Deputy discovers cruiser damaged by incendiary overnight
Federal authorities are investigating what they say is suspicious damage to a squad car belonging to the Cass County (ND) Sheriff’s Office.
According to the Sheriff’s Office, early Tuesday morning, a deputy was walking from their residence to the patrol vehicle and noticed that the vehicle had sustained minor damage during overnight hours.
Upon further investigation, the deputy observed that the object used to damage the vehicle resembled an incendiary device.
The deputy contacted the Red River Regional Bomb Squad, requesting further investigation and authorities confirmed the device was incendiary in nature.
The investigation is being conducted by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), assisted by Fargo Police.
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