(Spirit Lake)– The ongoing stalemate in the Iowa Legislature over commercial and industrial property tax reform and the budget has the Spirit Lake city council taking a wait and see approach when it comes to plans to remodel the police station and build a new city hall.
The issue came up for discussion at Tuesday evening’s city council meeting. City Administrator Mark Stevens told the council the deadline to notify the County Auditor of the language for the measure to be placed on the ballot is September 23rd if they intend to hold the referendum with the November general election.
But councilman Steve Balm says he’s reluctant to come up with that language just yet, citing the ongoing deadlock in the State Legislature over the budget and commercial and industrial property tax reform.
Stevens says depending on what happens with property tax reform, it could mean as much as a 14 percent reduction in the city’s tax base. He says “that would be very significant and impact a lot of things that we do”.
Several other council members echoed Balm’s concerns, saying at this point the city should simply wait to see what happens in the legislature before proceeding any further with the proposed police station/city hall project.
