A battle of statistics in Prior Lake mayor, council elections

E-mails are flying. Highlighter pens are squeaking. Copy and fax machines are on overdrive. It's the waning days of the election for mayor and council in Prior Lake, and each side is trying to sell its own story of what's going on at City Hall:

Is the real point years of steady tax increases?

Or is the real point that a growing city has managed to keep its taxes modest by the standards of others in its own county, despite a long list of belated upgrades and forward-looking investments?

"I just get concerned that these guys are trying to trumpet something and it's not right," said Mike Myser, running for mayor as a fiscal conservative.

"Whenever you make needed and desired investments, you put yourself up for criticism," said Mayor Jack Haugen, who is leaving office after eight years but moving openly to defend his legacy in the last days before the election.

Challengers say the city -- not just candidates, but city government itself -- is making selective and misleading use of statistics to depict taxes as rock-bottom when they really aren't.

And Haugen is bristling at the attacks -- enough so to bring a sheaf of statistics, memos and photocopies to an interview Thursday in downtown Prior Lake.

He pulled out copies of actual tax statements from homes on Wood Duck Drive in Prior Lake, Amberwood Lane in Savage and Whispering Oaks Trail in Shakopee. His point: While all three homes are worth about a half-million bucks, the city-only taxes on them are very different: $1,392.32 in Prior Lake, $1,606.70 in Shakopee and $2,274.42 in Savage. The same thing is true, he said, though the differences are narrower, when you compare a more average-valued home, worth $319,000, across the three.

What about the myriad other fees that cities charge, such as franchise fees and utility fees? He was ready with another paper-clipped memo, from city finance director Jerilyn Erickson. Among her points was that of the eight types of utility fees charged by the "big three" cities in the county, Prior Lake imposes four, Shakopee five, and Savage seven.

Myser accepts the tax rate differences but counters that the way the city likes to depict them, in widely circulated brochures, is bogus. By including tiny outlying Scott County communities with very little tax base, such as Belle Plaine, whose tax rates are among the very highest in the entire metro area, he says, the city spins the situation to make its own rates look positively tiny even though they really aren't.

He brandishes his own e-mail from Erickson, acknowledging that the city's levy -- total taxes collected -- has shot from $7.3 million in 2005 to a proposed $10 million for next year. Although the city has grown during that time, the rate of increase in the levy (38 percent) is four to five times greater than the rate of increase in the number of households.

"You see headlines saying 'city cuts budget,'" he said, "but spending is still way up."

Said Haugen: "We would recognize that the levy's gone up. But we've kept the tax impact on the average home at a rate below that of inflation -- even as we've caught up with things that were left undone for a long period of time under previous councils."

Division of votes possible

At stake in the election is the possibility at least of a major change in direction. In an off-year vote that could attract more unhappy folks than satisfied ones, defenders of the status quo might divide their votes between council incumbent Steve Millar and newcomer Troy Presler in the vote for mayor, handing Myser the win.

A Mystic Lake casino worker, Francis Klinkner, is also running, on a libertarian platform criticizing the city for free-market meddling, as when it sought to rein in garbage haulers whose trucks pound city streets. The council dropped that attempt in the end.

In the council race, meanwhile, dissidents have two horses in the race for two seats -- Richard Keeney, a top vote-getter in the last election, and Dave Thompson. The other five candidates, including incumbent Warren Erickson, are on the more centrist-to-progressive end of the city's political spectrum.

Haugen knows his own legacy is being examined, and he defends it with relish.

"We built new wells so we wouldn't have watering bans that cost our citizens tens of thousands of dollars. We built a new police station and city hall, which enhance downtown and our own services. We built a new fire station to protect people on the west side of the lake. We bought a big piece of park property called Pike Lake that's worth $1.2 million, for $500,000. We bought 38 acres at Spring Lake for a future park.

"You do put yourself at risk of criticism, but look at the pride that comes from a changed community. And in fact we've done it at very low impact on people's personal city taxes."

David Peterson • 952-882-9023