What are Cook County’s three most pressing issues? The Cook County Board of Commissioners has been asked to send the Arrowhead Counties Association a list of the three legislative priorities it believes are most important to Cook County.
At the Tuesday, October 12, 2010 county board meeting, commissioners came up with the following ideas:
Bruce Martinson considered bridge bonding to be of vital importance to the county.
Fritz Sobanja wanted to see a moratorium on the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency’s ability to impose new rules for septic systems. This year, changing rules brought about proposed revisions to Cook County’s septic ordinance that could affect property owners in ways that some consider quite significant.
Jim Johnson suggested that one priority be to keep Cook County’s courtroom open. TheMinnesota Judicial Branch has proposed consolidating court administration services and closing some courtrooms in response to state budget cuts.
“Somehow we have to get around this idea that taxes are bad,” Johnson said. Taxes maintain a level of society and services that result in a certain quality of life, he said. Political ads reduce messages to nothing more than lowering taxes and reducing budgets, he said. Such sound bites don’t reflect the services that are provided through tax dollars, he said.
Bruce Martinson said Cook County’s proposed levy increase of 4.6% is the highest in the region. Thestate should be required to fund services they mandate, he said. Counties have been faced with increasing local taxes as state funding has decreased.
The state-imposed county levy limit is scheduled to end in 2011, said Auditor- Treasurer Braidy Powers. The state might reinstate it, however, if it believes counties raised their levies too much.
Fritz Sobanja said, “Why should counties pay sales tax to the state?” He stated that administrative costs take up a lot of local tax money before the state sends any of it back in the form of aid. Sobanja said he would rather see local taxes pay for someone in Cook County to fill potholes outside in the fresh air, away from unhealthy compact fluorescent lightbulbs. Instead, he said, the money that goes to the state pays for people to sit inside under unhealthy lights in front of computers.
The board gave itself a week to think about its legislative priorities.
On October 19, with Commissioner Jan Hall absent, the county board came up with four priorities it would most like the Arrowhead Counties Association to address with the state legislature over the next year, but they were reluctant to remove one of them.
They were: the importance of funding to keep roads and bridges safe and in good repair, keeping court administration services and court proceedings in Cook County in the face of state budget cuts, keeping sales tax within the county instead of paying the state to administer them, and putting an end to unfunded mandates.
The board decided to send in all four priorities and ask Arrowhead Counties Association registered lobbyist John Ongaro to take out the one issue he believes is least likely to be successful with the legislature.
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