Sales tax: Specifics would be forthcoming

Published 12:00 am Tuesday, October 23, 2001

From staff reports

Specifics of a Destination: Albert Lea proposal for a local-option sales tax are few, and members say a study will be necessary to decide what projects would be funded.

Tuesday, October 23, 2001

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Specifics of a Destination: Albert Lea proposal for a local-option sales tax are few, and members say a study will be necessary to decide what projects would be funded.

Some ideas, however, were expressed at Monday’s meeting:

n DAL member Karen Smed told the council that Minnesota cities with historic preservation commissions can secure an easement of building facades, allowing the city to use public funding to clean up storefronts and enhance their historic properties.

A historic preservation commission is a subcommittee of a city planning commission that can make recommendations about how to keep up historic properties. A large portion of downtown Albert Lea is a historic district, and DAL members said preservation experts say Albert Lea has one of the most well-preserved historic downtown areas in Minnesota.

Albert Lea does not have a historic preservation commission; one would need to be established by the city council.

Smed said restoring the face of downtown structures to a historic condition can be as easy as changing windows awnings.

n Members told the council that lake projects undertaken by the council would not conflict with those underway at the county level. The county and an assembly of committees have been working to update a watershed plan, in accordance with a state mandate from the Board of Soil and Water Resources.

City Manager Paul Sparks told the council that sales taxes can be a good way to fund lake projects, because property-tax based fund raising can open governments up to court challenges from landowners.

n DAL Secretary Mary Ellen Johnson told the council that funding could be used on any city-owned buildings downtown; for instance, the city owns the former Freeborn Bank building, also known as the Vault.

DAL has proposed using 65 percent of the proceeds from the one-percent tax to pay for lake projects and the remaining 35 percent to improve downtown, although members told the board those figures are open to negotiation.

The sales tax, which if approved by voters in 2002 would go into effect in April 2003, would raise more than $2 million a year. DAL members said a third of that cost would come from visitors who make purchases in Albert Lea, and that the cost for an average Albert Lea resident would be about 13 cents a day.