Annexation
Creates Jobs
| Every acre of land annexed into a Wisconsin
city or village creates, on average, 11 jobs, according to a study by the Wisconsin
Economic Development Institute.(WEDI) Although the state doesn't keep figures on all
annexations, the institute estimated that 10,300 jobs per year are created in annexed
areas. That's a third of all the jobs created in the
state last year. During development of the annexed land, there are nearly 29,000 people at
work creating the infrastructure necessary to accommodate the development or supporting
the infrastructure creation off-site, the study estimated.
"This number seems to be inordinately large on an
annual annexation basis," the study said. "However, for just one firm, MLG,
according to its chairman, J. Michael Mooney, 'a conservative estimate is $644 million in
current tax base producing $16 million annually in property taxes and 22,000 jobs
producing $900 million annually in payfolls has been created so far in land annexed and
developed as business parks by our organization... Upon completition of existing MLG
projects, those numbers will nearly triple.'"
MLG has developed eleven business parks, including ones in Beaver Dam, Beloit and
Waukesha. The company's business parks typically rely on Tax Incremental Financing (TIF)
to provide infrastructure for development.
TIFs throughout the state grew 11.6% in value last year, and almost 4% of the total
value of cities and villages was value created through TIF financing, according to the
Legislative Fiscal Bureau.
The WEDI report is available here.
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Potentially unconstitutional
GOP drafts pro-smoking bill
By Rich Eggleston
Unfortunately, it wasn't an April Fool's joke.
The Wisconsin State Journal reported April 1 that
Republican lawmakers are floating a proposal to regulate smoking in restaurants statewide,
let bars decide whether to go smoke-free and prevent local governments entirely from
having a voice in a crucial local public health issue.
The Alliance of Cities thinks the bill is unconsitutional because smoking in any
particular bar just isn't a matter of statewide concern. If enacted and somehow ruled
constitutional, the regulations would override Madison's ordinance to ban smoking in
bars, due to take effect in July, the State Journal said. Other ordinances across
the state could also be affected, public health groups added.
"This legislation sets a dangerous precedent and
would allow for the establishment of a weak public health standard that will be difficult,
if not impossible to strengthen," the American Cancer Society, the American Heart
Association, the American Lung Association and Smokefree Wisconsin said in a memo to
legislators here. For
Smokefree Wisconsin executive director Maureen Busalacchi's take on the issue, look here.
The bill is fundamentally political, and the tobacco
industry wants to kill local control to make its lobbying efforts easier, local-control
advocates say.
"They can much more easily buy off the Legislature and work at the state level than
they can at the local level," said Madison Ald. Steve Holtzman, the primary force
behind the Madison ordinance. "They know that smoke-free legislation is popular, and
they can't possibly stem the tide at the local level."
At the local level, the tide is definitely rising. A
proposed ordinance in Stevens Point is the talk of the town there, former newspaper editor
Bill Berry wrote in his Capital Times column here.
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| Alliance honors Mayor Miller He gave us some of the best years of his life, and he didn't even
get a gold watch.
But Alliance President Tim Seider of Greenfield did
present former Alliance President Mike Miller with a plaque recognizing his service to the
city of West Bend, local governments in general and the Wisconsin Alliance of Cities in
particular.
Mayor Miller, who did not seek re-election in West Bend
Tuesday, also has been president of the Mid-Moraine Municipal Association and the League
of Wisconsin Municipalities, as well as serving on the steeing committee of Southeastern
Municipal Executives and on the board of directors of the West Bend Area Chamber of
Commerce.
He was first elected mayor of West Bend in 1987, and was
re-elected in 1990, 1993, 1996, 1999 and 2002.
Mayor Miller has been an outspoken critic of state shared
revenue policies that resulted in a reduction in shared revenue payments from $3.3 million
in 1987 when he became mayor to $1.5 million today, as he leaves office.
And those numbers aren't adjusted for inflation! The loss
has been offset somewhat by payments under the Expenditure Restraint Program, which Gov.
Jim Doyle has proposed eliminating as part of his plan to impose levy limits on local
governments. |
Alliance President Tim Seider presents plaque
to Mayor Mike Miller
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A couple more pairs to
draw to
Dave Clarenbach & Ed Huck
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Mayor Glowacki & Mayor Oitzinger
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| News Briefs Waukesha County to Overtake Milwaukee County: If trends
continue, the equalized value of Waukesha County will surpass that of Milwaukee County in
2014, according to the latest regional report by the Public Policy Forum. The forum found
that the seven counties of southeastern Wisconsin grew $145.4 billion in property value
from 2003 to 2004, an 8.9% increase. Kenosha County grew the fastest, 10.3%, but among
municipalities, the village of Merton in Waukesha County grew 29.7% in value. See the full
report here.
Getting clubbed with an olive branch: Brookfield
Mayor Jeff Speaker said he didn't ask the town of Brookfield if it was
interested in consolidating with the city before commissioning a study on a possible
merger. "I'm just a little sick of extending the olive branch and having it taken
away from me and hit over the head with it," Speaker told the Milwaukee Journal
Sentinel, Predictably, town officials threw cold water on the idea, Speaker said he
was interested in any cooperation that saves residents money and improves services. Story here.
Residential share
of total property taxes
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"There are so many different layers
of local, county and state government in Wisconsin it takes a map, a notebook and a piece
of duct tape to figure out which one you are in," Mike Nichols responded in
his Journal Sentinel column. "The duct tape is to keep you from screaming."
Column here. Speaking of mergers, CEOs Edward Whitacre Jr. of SBC
and Ivan Seidenberg of Verizon refused to promise Sen. Herb Kohl
that they'd stop lobbying state legislatures to bar local governments from entering the
municipal broadband business if Congress approves mergers of their companies, SBC with
AT&T, and Verizon with MCI. "We're certainly going to lobby against that,"
Whitacre told Sen. Kohl at a March 15 Senate Judiciary Committee hearing. The C-SPAN
video, with Sen. Kohl's exchange with Whitacre and Seidenberg about 45 minutes through the
hearing, is here.
Over the past year, Appleton has sold more
than $75,000 in surplus equipment on the Internet trading site eBay, with some items
selling for nearly triple the amount the city used to net during its annual auction, the Appleton
Post-Crescent reports. The results have been so rewarding that the city has canceled
its annual auction, and some neighboring communities are looking to follow suit.
Items sold so far include a riding lawn mower, a cargo van, a Jeep and three Valley
Transit buses. Story here.
Green Bay Mayor Jim Schmitt says he has just
begun the task of revitalizing his city's downtown. There are three major downtown
construction and redevelopment projects underway: The Nicolet National Bank Building,
Baylake Bank City Center and a new parking ramp. “The momentum is on our side as we
have just scratched the surface with these projects,” Mayor Schmitt said in his
state-of-the-city speech. “There is more to come.” Story here.
Conspiracy theory: There "seems to be
an orchestrated effort" to badmouth business for avoiding property taxes, former
State Revenue Secretary Rick Chandler says in an Op-Ed piece in the Wisconsin State
Journal. Chandler suggests that some folks may think there is "a sinister plot
by business interests to shift their property tax responsibilities to residential
homeowners." Chandler asserts that, "While it may serve some political purpose
to make this claim, it's not true." Chandler in turn claims market forces dictate the
shifting share of property taxes, but he offers no facts to back up his claim. If anyone
has any facts, would you please let us know? Chandler's column is here.
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