Proposed Street Light Fee: The Element of Surprise

We are pleased the Fargo City Commission delayed action Monday night on the newly recommended street light fee until the next commission meeting two weeks later. This gives them time to shed light on this proposal, so as to assure that an entire community will not be left in the dark, so to speak.

As we understand it, Fargo pays approximately $800,000 annually for street lights. This comes out of the General Fund.

The new fee would assess residences $4 and businesses $10 monthly. Reportedly, that would raise $1.6 million annually.

It is not clear that there would be an equivalent deduction in property taxes assessed, even though it is implied by some that this would reduce the general fund mill levy. It is also not clear why exactly this proposal surfaced and from whence it came.

We applaud Commissioner Mike Williams for helping put this issue on hold at least until the next commission meeting. “I’m doing my best to slow this down and suggest we discuss it before the next budget is set,” Williams told HPR. “I doubt many commissioners would have been willing to up the mill levy 5 mills, that’s the equivalent for the $1.6 million in new fees that are being proposed without any reduction in the general fund.”

HPR has also communicated with Fargo resident Loren Holscher, who in an email to Fargo officials, including Williams, raised a number of questions and concerns about the proposed street light fee. Holscher’s biggest concern was whether there would be a decrease in property taxes if the funding for street lighting be moved from the general fund to the utility fee. “In my case, I paid $395.05 in property taxes that went to the city of Fargo, which I understand goes into the general fund,” Holscher explained. “If there is not a similar offset to my property taxes, then in reality the commission will have increased my property taxes allotted for the city of Fargo 12 percent-plus.”

With Holscher’s permission, we’d like to share the questions he posed to Fargo officials about this street lighting fee proposal charging commercial properties $10 and residential properties $4 monthly. We too look forward to answers to these questions:

1. Is this each commercial business or each commercial property owner? The mall may only have one business owner (not sure) but encompasses quite a few businesses.

2. Will each apartment in an apartment building be assessed the fee or just one $10 fee to the apartment building owner?

3. Will tax exempt businesses pay the fee? Being that this is a utility type fee and not a tax I am assuming that tax exempts will also pay this fee just as they pay for their utilities.

4. How about businesses that use a considerable amount of street frontage; i.e. businesses in the industrial park, the hospitals, the Fargodome, etc…will they pay just $10 for all the street frontage that they use? Do you deem it fair that every business and tax exempt pay the same no matter how much street frontage and lighting they use?

According to Commissioner Williams, there should be a reduction in the mill levy that corresponds to the increase in this new street lighting fee and energy efficiency improvements made. “This street light fee discussion should have taken place before the 2010 Budget hearings so commissioners and the public could weigh in at the meetings,” he said.

Part of the public concern stems from the surprise element in this street lighting fee proposal. And the commission—including Williams—approved it on first reading.

We are pleased that Williams advocated for the people before this change was etched in stone. We join the multitudes of citizens like Loren Holscher who are looking for answers to their questions.

Most citizens, we are guessing, wish this proposal had never seen the light of day in the first place.

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