Impact fees are fair for business
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Editor,
I have read in local papers recently about the issue of City of Polson impact fees for new construction. According to City of Polson Finance Officer Cindy Dooley, impact fees were eliminated in 2008 to accommodate contractors whose businesses were devastated in the Great Recession. In 2013 the city reintroduced impact fees at 50 percent of the pre-2008 levels. Apparently the city lost $250,000 in 2014 performing new construction hook ups for new businesses. She recommends the city council raise impact fees to 2008 levels so the city can break even and the costs aren’t passed down to its citizens.
In the last two council meetings, the city commissioners have voted to table the issue.
I have written a letter or email to each of our commissioners asking them to respond to the issue. I also delivered the letter to city hall to ensure each of them received it in a timely fashion that will allow each of them to respond. As of Friday, June 5, only one has.
I hope developers, real estate agents, and building contractors haven’t tried to manipulate our commissioners into passing their costs of business onto the constituents.
Hopefully our city commissioners haven’t been presented with idiotic notions of “new taxes generated by new business will offset the costs of new construction hook ups.”
Nationwide, cities bought this walloper for decades and for decades had to raise taxes on its citizens because it simply isn’t true. We know all this and that’s why cities and counties all over this county have impact fees. It’s only fair.
Rolf Harmsen
Polson
