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City considers fee to pay for street lights
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Wednesday, 25 June 2008
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Jennifer Larson
Staff Writer
Making sure the city of Forest Lake is not left in the dark is a costly government service.
To offset that yearly expense, the city council discussed establishing a Street Light Utility Fund during its regular meeting on Monday.
According to City Engineer Phil Gravel, the annual electric bills for Forest Lake was around $85,000 in 2007. He said the cost is $7 per street light per month.
Based on the approximate number of homes and businesses within the benefitted area that includes the dense, urbanized section mainly to the north, Gravel said the utility would need to charge somewhere between $4 and $5 per quarter to generate about $90,000 per year in revenue to cover 100 percent of the annual street light costs.
He said the city only pays the utility bills while Connexus and Excel Energy maintain the street lights. He said other cities supplement their budget with a special service district such as the one being suggested.
Councilwoman Susan Young said she was in favor of pursuing the issue.
However, Councilwoman Judy Bull questioned if it was worth the trouble to collect anywhere between $16 and $20 annually per household to offset the city’s utility costs. She inquired if it wouldn’t be better to install energy efficient bulbs in the street lights.
Gravel said the city pays a flat fee to maintain street lights with the cost for decorative lighting slightly more.
City Administrator Chip Robinson said the concept would be a mechanism to inject revenue into the general fund that wouldn’t be there otherwise. That’s like one and a half police officers, he added.
The next step is to have City Attorney Dave Hebert review the process and draft a policy. The city administration would also need to figure out the number of homes and businesses within the benefitted area and determine the best way to do the billing.
It appears that most of the properties within the benefitted area are already on the city’s sewer billing system, Gravel said.
Shedding light
The council also discussed the possibility of installing one or two street lights on the west side of the intersection on US-61 and 202nd St.
Gravel said that last year a resident had asked about the chance of shedding more light on that part of road. An estimated cost to install the two lights is $11,318, he noted.
The council’s response was to wait until the intersection is improved.
At some point, that area will develop as it is included in the city’s growth plan.
Other news
In other news, the city council:
•Accepted the Forest Lake Lions Club donation of $15,000 for Lakeside Memorial Park improvement project.
•Approved the T-Mobile antennae site agreement.
•Appointed William (Bill) Loushine to the planning commission due to the resignation of Stephen Andersen.
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