This weblog is where I will post new and interesting ideas on local and regional topics. I am very interested in your comments and ideas. Please send me an email using the Contact Me! page. Thank you, Carl Recent Changes: 1)        We as a Common Council were able to find ways to keep our municipal tax rate low, especially compared against like communities across Wisconsin. Yes, our overall tax rate did go up but the majority of the tax increase was due to the passing of the Street Repair Referendum in November 2006. In addition your overall tax bill saw increases due to the West De Pere Elementary School Referendum which added quite a bit to your tax bill in 2006 and 2007 and 2008. 2)        We were able to find an equitable way to consolidate our Wastewater Treatment Plant with the Green Bay Metropolitan Sewage Department (GBMSD). By doing this we were able to accomplish two major items for the tax payers of De Pere. a.        Your water and sewer bills will remain at their current levels for the foreseeable future. If we were still independent we would have seen a large increase in 2009-2010 as we were set to lose a major water user. b.        We were able to parlay the sale of the plant into an instrument to help De Pere keep a future growth area to the Southeast. This growth area will help keep De Pere taxes lower as more area is added to the tax base over the next two decades. 3)        General Street Repair – Residential and Commercial- was added to the tax rolls due to a referendum that was passed in November 2006. This insured that individual property owners would not see street assessments when their streets is repaved in the future, but in the short term it did raise taxes to a level that can almost support our street repair and street construction program. 4)        We were able to add a new Police Officer in the 2008 budget as a School Liason officer. This cost will be shared with the School Districts. 5)        We as a council had our first go around with cutting services in 2006. The brush pickup program was looked at and was decided to be cut in 2007. Due to several residents who protested, the Council Approved an amended plan which cut down pick up to 6 times per year. This seems to be working well. Overall, I believe that the Council learned a valuable lesson in that we need more public input before doing a service cut. And we also need to look at other creative ways to provide certain services. The decision does not always have to be either yes or no, but instead we can modify a service to fit they way it is used and end up saving tax payer dollars in the end. 6)        De Pere completed the construction of our new Claude Allouez Bridge. At times it seemed daunting, but in the end residents, drivers and local businesses all have a valuable asset that adds to the charm of De Pere. Commercial Expansion De Pere has one of the largest land areas available in Brown County for Commercial/Light industrial expansion in our East and West side Business Parks. I believe that we currently do an excellent job of helping new and expanding businesses with informational and financial support. Bill Patzke does a terrific job of helping new business gain access to all permit and land information and helping them navigate to gain approval for the Revolving Loan Fund. Going forward we need to keep abreast of all the regional changes that are happening. Most notably a new 18 county coalition names "The New North". This is a large scale marketing effort for the North Eastern Wisconsin area to attract and retain business. I feel that De Pere needs to be active in this initiative. The New North staff will have access to large employers. We need to keep the New North staff up to date on De Pere's industrial parks so that these new opportunities do not pass us by. Our industrial parks need to always be on the short list. Bottom line is that De Pere needs to stay tied into these initiatives and good things will result. This is just one additional way that De Pere will grow economically. The Free Market and Annexation Lately there has been a number of news stories about annexation. De Pere and Ledgeview recently came to an agreement to allow the annexation of a land "island" of Ledgeview into De Pere over a 10 year period. This is an example of where annexation makes sense. Ledgeview will be able to incoporate to village status, and De Pere will be able to add a large portion of land to the general tax rolls. The next question to be debated will be the further annexation of the Town of Rockland. There are numerous land owners who are looking to take advantage of the urban housing boom by selling their land to developers, while the Town of Rockland does not want to cede another inch of land to De Pere. I feel that the bottom line of this issue comes down to the free market. Anyone who owns a piece of land has the right to search out the best deal and make the largest possible profit. Most of the time this cannot be done with minimum acreage parcels and no  hookups to water and sewer. Rockland is working on being able to offer landowners a choice by hooking up the the Green Bay metropolitan Sewer District and forming special areas where small lots will be available. The question remains would this have happened if De Pere did not offer a choice to those land owners? Did annexation work as it should have and gave the largest possible profit to these specific landowers? I would argue yes. And when the developers purchase the land from these landowners they should still have the option to decide on where they can get the best deal for their services, De Pere or the Town of Rockland. That is the free market in action leading to the overall good of everyone. My thoughts on taxes Taxes are a necessary part of government. The bottom line is that the residents of a city need basic services and the local government is in the position to provide them. My goal as your alderperson will be to keep control over the escalation of these taxes. If taxes continue to spiral upward, housing costs will soon be out of reach for a majority of De Pere residents. There are two main ways to control taxes, either maintain/cut municipal services or to increase the tax base so the tax burden is spread out. I am not a proponent of cutting existing services. De Pere has a history of keeping services at a minimal level to try and control taxes. After reviewing the 2006 De Pere Municipal budget, there are very few areas where cutting is even possible today.   Therefore the other option is to expand the tax base. The main area for expansion is our commercial tax base, especially in our East and West De Pere Industrial Parks. By expanding the commercial tax base we can reduce the taxes paid by the residential sector. One group that understands this is the Main Street Economic Redevelopment Committee, that I am a member of. We have been actively going out and trying to recruit new businesses to De Pere. Our committee has recently contacted such large retailers such as Gordman's, Crate and Barrel, Cooks Corner and various Door County retail shops to gauge their interest in De Pere. Soon some of these retailers could be a welcome addition in the De Pere area. Their presence will mean lower taxes for you. De Pere Police and Fire Services My last webblog entry about taxes, got me thinking about the services that we do receive in De Pere already. I just wanted to recognize one area that stands out to me. This service, that is proudly given to De Pere every day, is our Police and Fire Department. They provide an excellent service at a reasonable cost to the city. My first hand knowledge of the squad comes first from my step-brother who is on the Fire/Rescue team. I know that he takes his responsibility to us as residents very seriously.  I also have a number of friends on the squad including a group that I play softball with. They are truly dedicated to serving the residents of De Pere. They deserve our respect and gratitude. April 6, 2006 - The power of the people This election truly showed that every vote counts. I won by a small margin, and the majority has spoken. I want to thank everyone who voted for me from the bottom of my heart. It means a lot that you entrust me to represent you and your views. For those who did not vote for me, I will work diligently every day to earn your trust and respect. The clock is ticking and I will prove to everyone that you made a wise choice. Residents of Distrct Three - I thank you all.