Who is my neighbor?

Star Tribune Sun, 30 Mar 2008 03:42:24 GMT
Lakeville on new tax: Show us the buses

The city is being pressed on several fronts to assess a transit tax but wants to make sure the benefits to residents are sustained. "We're looking at a chicken-and-egg thing." That's how Rep. Shelley Madore, DFL-Apple Valley, describes the fight heating up between Lakeville and its neighbors over whether Lakeville residents should pay a tax that homeowners in most metro-area cities already pay. Madore and many other south-metro leaders think it's only fair that Lakeville join the transit taxing district, but Lakeville officials have so far refused. So which come first: buses, or the taxes that help pay for them? The debate, which has been bubbling for years, has new urgency this spring: The Metropolitan Council has said it won't build two new bus stations in Lakeville unless residents start paying the tax, and Madore introduced a measure in the Legislature that would force Lakeville and neighboring Farmington to join the taxing district.

[[keywords: LandUse;PublicWorks;PropertyTax;Metro;]]