St. Joseph Newsleader • www.thenewsleaders.com
Friday, Feb. 15, 2013
3
Street light utility fee Bus service in St. Joseph will end takes effect in March by TaLeiza Calloway
news@thenewsleaders.com
by TaLeiza Calloway news@thenewsleaders.com
The St. Joseph City Council voted, 3-2, Feb. 7 to implement a street-light utility fee despite some reservations by city officials. Council members Steve Frank and Dale Wick voted against the move. “I just don’t think it was the best option,” Wick said. Collection of the fee will begin in March. Residents will see an increase of $18 per year, and businesses will see an increase of about $20 per year, St. Joseph City Administrator Judy Weyrens said. The utility fee is based on a per-unit system and is not as simple as paying for the light by one’s home, Weyrens told officials. “It really is systemwide,” Weyrens said of the fee. “It’s an asset. Everyone should pay the same share of the asset.” Wick said he would have
liked to have seen more options on how to distribute the fee. Sue Palmer, vice president of finance and administration for the College of St. Benedict, spoke during a public hearing about the fee Feb. 7. Palmer asked officials to explain the basis for the fee. She said the city should perhaps consider an alternative way of distributing the fee or offer CSB a credit for the lighting costs the college already pays. Under the approved change, the college will pay about $600 per light per year. Street lighting is generally included in the city’s property-tax levy, but in December 2012 officials voted to remove it and institute a street-light utility fee. By pulling the street-lighting expense from the levy, instead of residents and businesses paying taxes to the county for street lighting, they will pay the city directly every two months, staff said previously.
Home Stretch set Feb. 23 for first-time homebuyers Home Stretch, a first-time homebuyer workshop that takes participants through the entire home-buying process will be held from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 23 at the office of the Central Minnesota Housing Partnership. Homebuyer education is also offered as an online course. Framework is a new online tool to prepare you for successful homeownership. Framework will provide you with the facts you need to become a knowl-
edgeable buyer. Many lenders have approved Framework to meet homebuyer education requirements. For more information, visit www.thenewsleaders.com and click on Criers.
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Busing services provided by the Tri-County Action Program on Thursdays in St. Joseph will end after a recent city council vote. Tri-CAP recently informed the city ridership is too low to maintain the route. The city weighed the option of paying for the continuation of the scheduled bus service Feb. 7 but unanimously voted not to move forward with the service due to cost. This is the second adjustment to bus service in the city. The route went from two days a week to one day a week in 2011 due to the radius of Tri-CAP’s ser-
vice area shrinking last year and budget reductions. The twice-weekly bus service in St. Joseph began in 2009. Through the collaboration of the city, St. Benedict Monastery and the St. Joseph Lions Club, the city entered an agreement with Tri-CAP. The cost of the contract was about $2,400 with each unit contributing $800. St. Joseph City Administrator Judy Weyrens said it would have cost the city about $54 per hour and $324 per week to keep the Thursday service. The prices include the cost of fuel, the driver and the bus, she told officials during the council meeting. “It would’ve been quite
costly,” Weyrens said. “The nice thing is residents can still use the Dial-A-Ride service.” Last year, the city had 534 one-way trips. Overall ridership last year did not meet transportation requirements from the Minnesota Department of Transportation, Weyrens said. MnDOT requires five passengers per hour in cities and three-plus passengers per hour in rural areas. St. Joseph has about 2.79 passengers per hour in the city and about 1.46 passengers in rural areas. The last day of the route is still being determined.