Charter Amendment on Ballot for Excelsior Voters

There's a Charter Amendment on the Ballot just for us in November. It was placed there by the Charter Commission, a group o 10 unelected Excelsior residents. Whatever the Charter Commission says to the Council, the Council (who was actually elected) must accept. In the current situation, the Council is obliged to put the Amendment language on the ballot, whether the individual council members agree with it or not.

It deals with the use of Port of Excelsior, parkland and the Commons, saying that the City may never sell, lease, develop it except for "city sponsored parkland uses..." So what is that? What is a "city sponsored" use? What is not a "city sponsored" use? The charter boats are leasing the ports located on this same land, but they are not "sponsored" by the city. Anyone who knows differently, please post here. If the city is sponsoring the charter boat cruises, how are we, the voters, paying for that?

Several council members have openly stated that they do not support this language, including Nick Ruehl and Wendy Borghorst.

Sometimes hastily written laws and rules bring unintended consequences.

So, the question for Excelsior Voters is: Why do this? What will that do to the Charter Boats and Tommy's Trolley if neither of them are indeed "city sponsored" parkland uses? Do we want to hamstring our elected officials to the dictums of an unelected commission? Your thoughts please.

House Seat 33B is Open Again

Election season is around the corner (well, November; but that's still fairly soon). Minnesota House seat in 33B, formerly held by Barb Sykora and then John Berns, will again be filled by a new candidate. One of them, DFL candidate Kim Kang, was in Excelsior over July 4th to meet and greet Excelsior voters. What do we know about city elections that will also be on the ballot? Who would you like to see serve on the council, or mayor? With the Pavillion discussion behind us, what are the next issues for Excelsior to deal with, and who can best do that?

Water Meters

Excelsior residents have been recieving (unsigned) letters telling them they MUST make an appointment to install a new, radio-controlled water meter in their basements. Then you have to pay for such meters, like it or not; regardless of whether your meter is new, old, working fine or not. The letters state that if you do not comply, you are subject to fines and water service shut offs. To make the letters impressive, an ordinance is cited. Most people cave in and assume the letter has the force of law.

HOWEVER, A simple reading of the cited ordinance shows that in fact, the threats are once again without merit. Nothing in the cited ordinance either gives the city the right to enter our homes, or cut off our water if we don't do what they tell us to do. It's the same as the sump pump fiasco. We never did have to let them inside (but they did not tell us that part...). Also like the sidewalks, when the staff told certain homeowners that we could be assessed 100% of the sidewalk repairs under the nuisance ordinance -- well, that turned out to be wrong, too.

So now the city is going to re-write the water meter ordinance. The new ordinance will purportedly REQUIRE that we give access to city workers to the inside our homes, and all water meters must be inside our homes. So how does that work with the Bill of Rights (4th and 5th Amendments)? Once installed and inside the homes, if the city staff thinks the meter signal is failing to work, or is too weak, then another section of the ordinance says we MUST give them access to the inside of our homes in order read them. It just never ends.

Question of the Day: Where do we draw the line on our privacy and property rights? The city started to install radio-signal water meters (on borrowed money, nonetheless, of $250,000) before they checked on the legality of entering our homes, or before conforming their ordinance, or before asking whether we want this or not. Instead, we just get letters threatening in bold red ink, that we do what they say.... Does this not once again have all the markings of another fiasco?

The Park Needs a Plan

The concensus of the Council after all of the Pavilion hearings is that Lot 204 is underutilized. They would like to consider another plan or design for the Port of Excelsior parkland that leads to the Commons. So the question remains: What should it be? What park amenities do we want to see, and which ones, if any, can Excelsior afford to do? Will park improvements pay for themselves? If not, then how does it get funded? What are other ideas or suggestions can address even part of the "tens of millions" infrastructure repairs the city council has talked about at these meetings. Even if you have an idea that doesn't generate revenue, but would just be "nice to have," what would that be and how does it get funded? Please, be specific and describe what you've got.

Petitions Circulating about Pavilion Project

There are several petitions being circulated among citizens of Excelsior about the Pavilion proposal. Some petitions are "pro" Pavilion, and others are "con" the Pavilion project

Sometimes well-meaning petitions can be worded in a manner that is based upon misinformation or assumptions of the author rather than on the actual facts. Read the wording very carefully and make sure the facts are correct.

Anyone who wishes to publish the wording of their petitions is welcome and invited to post their particular petition to this weblog site, so that the larger community can see what's coming their way, and could also comment here.

The next meeting about the Pavilion proposal will be April 16th at Excelsior Elementary School.

Event Season Is Upon Us

With warm weather season approaching, Excelsior will once again be "ground zero" for a litany of weekend events -- Art on the Lake, Fourth of July, Save the Lake, Apple Days, Crazy Days -- to name just a few. The list goes on. These events bring many visitors, cars, and consumers into this one square mile we call home.

As residents, how do we feel about these events? What changes would we like to see, if any, in the way these events are managed? More events? Fewer? What are the benefits and costs to Excelsior residents, and are they in balance? What are the issues for us? Post your thoughts on this.

Utility Rates Increase Again

The City just announced they have raised water rates by 10%, again, as they do each year. Sewer rates were raised by 5%; also fees for turning on the street lights (10%) , also the surface water management fee (10%) . City staff were given 4% raises. What do we have to say about this? Where is this going? Why are the increases necessary to this scale, year after year? When does it end, or does it?