(Spirit Lake)– About 60 land owners attended public hearings Monday pertaining to Drainage District 22 which includes the southern portion of Spirit Lake and runs south along the bike trail to near McDonalds in Okoboji.
One hearing was held on the recent annexation of additional land into the district; the other was over a reclassification of the district and preliminary assessments that have been issued to landowners to pay for five and-a-half million dollars in improvements made to the system a couple years ago. The work included the construction of several detention ponds.
The Spirit Lake city council serves as the district’s board of trustees, since the city took over the district from the county several years ago.
Four property owners are formally objecting to their being annexed into the district; another 16 are contesting the reclassification and assessments. Most of those were filed late Monday. Some were filed during the hearing. After being told initially no more objections could be filed after Monday’s hearing started, Assistant City Attorney Greg Owens decided to accept additional ones after several land owners said they weren’t aware of the filing deadline. Others questioned the notification procedure used during the process, along with the cost of the project. Referring to minutes of a city council meeting earlier this year, one man said the total cost of the project reported at that meeting was three and-a-half million dollars. He questioned how a few months later it could increase by two million dollars. The project engineer attributed the increase in part to interest on outstanding warrants along with additional work that had been done since those numbers were compiled.
The trustees or council took no action on the objections at last evening’s hearing…that went on for nearly two and-a-half hours. It was continued to 5:30 p.m. Wednesday, August 18th at which time the council or trustees will consider each objection on its own merits.
The trustees/council hope to have assessments finalized soon after that. They also must still decide a payback period for the assessments. Owens is recommending a 10 year payback, but says Iowa code allows up to a 20 year payback period. But he says there would be a higher interest cost associated with the longer payback period. He says property owners will be give the option of paying the assessments up front to avoid any interest costs altogether.
