News from the May 11th and May 19th City Council Meetings
The City Council and the County Assessor conducted the annual Board of Review meeting on May 11th to discuss real estate valuations used for determining property taxes on residential, industrial and commercial property. Eight citizens appeared to discuss valuations on twelve parcels. The City Council approved one valuation adjustment, which was for the Good Samaritan facility due to a mis-classification of approximately 1.5 acres of land. This information will now go to the Cottonwood County Board on June 16th.

On May 19th the City Council had nine licenses and permits to consider for approval in connection with Riverfest and other events. The City Council also approved a 3-year labor agreement with the City's largest union. The new agreement for 2009-2011 calls for a 1% cost-of-living adjustment in each year. A new part-time position for Telecommunications marketing and administration was also approved.

State Funding for Cities
As you know by now the legislature and Governor were unable to agree to a budget that would address the State's $4.6 billion deficit. The Governor has indicated that he will cut the State budget through an "unallotment" process, which essentially allows him to cut any State program by any amount he sees fit. One of the programs targeted for a substantial reduction is Local Government Aid (LGA). The LGA program was designed to keep a basic level of services operating in all cities by sharing the wealth between large and small cities and keeping property taxes down in communities with smaller tax bases. Windom is to get $1.334 million in LGA in 2009. This amount represents about 50% of our General Fund that is used to pay for public services. Public Safety (Police, Fire and Emergency Management) is the largest part of the General Fund budget and accounts for about 40% of our General Fund expenditures. I encourage you to contact our legislators (Senator Vickerman and Representative Rod Hamilton)and the Governor's office and ask them to limit cuts to LGA. We realize in this difficult economic time we must all sacrifice, but LGA was cut at the end of 2008 to balance the State budget and will take a disproportionate cut in 2009 and 2010 if the Governor stands by his budget proposals.

Airport - Federal Stimulus Project Update
Bids for the reconstruction of the runway and other general maintenance work were received on May 20th. These bids will be reviewed by the Airport Commission on May 21st and a recommendation on the project will be forwarded to the City Council for its consideration at their June 2nd meeting. The Windom Airport has $1.196 million in federal stimulus funding to pay for the runway reconstruction project. One of the key provisions to these monies is that no local matching dollars are required. Matching funds of 5% or about $4,000, however, are required for the other general maintenance work. Overall, this is an excellent project for the City of Windom.

2009 Street Project Status
As noted in today's Citizen the street project is moving along on schedule. We expect curb and gutter work to start later this week and paving could start around June 3rd on the section of 4th Avenue from Highway 71 to the new Perkin's Creek bridge. Pavement is being removed on Langley and underground work will soon start on this segment of the project.

Memorial Day Holiday
Just a reminder that the City offices will be closed on May 25th.