THE GOVERNMENT WHO WORKS FOR US

In order to catch up on the board meetings held weekly for the various departments who work on behalf of the residents of Moorhead, I watch as many as I can on Moorhead’s channel 12 Local Access. Obviously, I cannot attend many of these meetings – so having many of them on video and played back for those of us who want to keep up with what decisions have been made recently and how those decisions will affect all of us is a huge benefit to me and to anyone who is interested in finding out who is making these decisions and how each of those people voted.

Ash and I have lived in Moorhead for thirty years. I consider Moorhead my hometown, because of all the places I’ve rested my hat in my lifetime, I have lived in Moorhead far longer than anywhere else and I’ve grown to care about our town. After living much like a vagabond for many years with no real roots anywhere, I have learned what it means to grow with and belong to a community where your neighbors are decent, caring and helpful and just like you in more ways than most know. While it is often taken for granted, and certainly should not be, Moorhead has an enormous resource of residents who are often willing to step forward and work for the benefit of the majority of citizens who do not ever step forward. Moorhead is a smaller city with a complex form of government. There are many departments with each having different “compartments” and levels of authority within each. This type of governing calls for plenty of oversight by its citizenry. Thankfully, we have been able to meet this need.

One in particular is Moorhead’s Public Service Commission. MPS presently has a board filled with extremely competent individuals who not only desire to continue Moorhead’s independent utility functioning at its highest performance, but actually understand why it works as it does and how to keep the electric and water rates as low as possible so the good citizens of Moorhead can afford to live in Moorhead. They understand we have a large population of people who live on fixed incomes: students, retirees, lower-income families, and disabled people who rely on our city-owned utility to raise rates only when it is absolutely necessary.

However, by law (under an antiquated state law and the City Charter of Moorhead, which has its own requirements) MPS is mandated to literally hand over portions of its gross revenues to Moorhead City Council’s general fund, its economic development fund and its capital improvement fund.

In 2010 there wasn’t an increase. In 2011 MPS had to transfer from gross revenues within its electric and water funds a total of $6,710,297 to the city of Moorhead. The projected amount for 2012 is $7,413,900. The city is claiming that the large increase is due to flood mitigation (What happened to FEMA monies for buyouts? Ask Mayor Voxland.). The “projected” total amount the city of Moorhead wants for its budget in 2013 from MPS is $7,740,001. Basically, the city of Moorhead uses MPS as its “piggy bank of last resort” when it doesn’t have enough money to cover its own needs.

What happens when MPS loses money, or is forced to give extra revenue money to the city of Moorhead, because for whatever reason the city cannot manage to live within its own budget? MPS then doesn’t have the revenues it needs in reserve to NOT raise electrical and water rates to its customers. The difference between what the city is asking MPS to supply them with from 2011 to the projected amount in 2013 is rather substantial. So, should we be asking what the financial wizards within the city of Moorhead are doing with these extra revenue funds they are getting? Given the number of us who have been assessed twice on our property taxes in the last year and a half, and that MPS will probably need to raise our rates within the next year, and that we have major infrastructure and street repair needs — yes, put me in the column asking WHAT ARE YOU SPENDING OUR TAXES ON?

I certainly hope it is not on more unnecessary boondoggle projects like the “automated” sandbagging machine that cost the city $750,000. This mammoth octopus machine was not built in Minnesota or by a Minnesotan, or even manned in the last flood by a labor force hired in Minnesota, and needs a special building to be used and housed in.

Right now we have probably the best sitting City Council we’ve had in the time I’ve lived in Moorhead, for the most part and insofar as making prudent and honest decisions that don’t have additional “under the radar” agendas attached to them is concerned. But they cannot expect to double-dip the taxpayers without good reason and certainly not without an explanation.

Moorhead Public Service is not a tax per se. It is a fee, if you will, for what the taxpayers are getting in return for electric and water services. Bill Schwandt, MPS’s manager, has been doing an outstanding job, and that is because he works hand in hand with the MPS board to provide what the citizens of Moorhead need now and in the future.

Isn’t it time the city council of Moorhead looked at each department and began making strong recommendations as to how we can streamline our city government and the number of departments it has? And while they are doing that, perhaps each city council member might take the time to find out where the bids on particular projects are going, and whether the bids need to be rejected and started over. If each and every project is won by non-Minnesota companies, then maybe it’s time our EDA found out why and how that can be improved as well.

Questions and comments please email: sooasheim@aol.com or the Extra Editor in Chief: tfinney@ncppub.com