Analysis

Cutting the utility transfers moves the cost onto a levy that leans harder on homes. The amendment also reserves a seat for the largest accounts and gives no way out of a deadlock.

The city is catching up on debt, equipment, roads, and staffing after years of using reserves and delaying costs. These are the numbers behind the increase, including what recent spending bought and where staff found savings.

The survey came back with three loud, shared wishes. Don’t change Nowthen, fix the roads, and don’t raise taxes. You can have any two of those. You cannot have all three. The city’s own budget shows why.

This is the math behind the idea you’ve heard, that development “grows the tax base.” It covers how the city tax rate is set, why even a lot of new residential development may not move the needle on the rate even with an expanded tax base, and what it costs every home in Nowthen to keep the city undeveloped, worked through a real commercial project proposed in recent Nowthen history.

The council voted 3 to 2 to order a new tandem dump truck and plow instead of rebuilding the city’s 26-year-old Sterling. Here are the real numbers, why a used truck was not the cheap shortcut it sounds like, and why salt, not mileage, retires a plow truck.