Centerville Citizens For Ethical Taxation and Representation: Please Send Comments and Thoughts

Upcoming Meetings of City Council, Committees & Commissions

Per City Website
Link Here

The City website is not always the best at keeping the citizens informed with their "brief" list of upcoming sessions.

All Council sessions are held on the second and forth Wednesday of each month (if not rescheduled) at 6:30 and are open to the public.
Remember, you will not be allowed to speak unless you have previously arranged to be on the agenda or a request to address Council for two minutes is approved by Mayor Mary Capra in advance. Speaking out of turn is STRICTLY PROHIBITED.

Government of the people, by the people and for the people?

Residents may watch each previous session on North Metro Cable (15 or 16) as they are replayed.

Tues, Wed and Sat
@ Noon

Sun, Mon and Thurs
@ 6 p.m.

Not Televised:

Planning & Zoning Commission Meetings

Parks & Recreation Committee Meetings

State Auditor Suggestions For Centerville Officials

The city should consider opening up a competitive request-for-proposal process for things such as engineering services to "demonstrate impartiality."

It should provide more oversight of employee-reimbursement funds such as mileage to ensure information is recorded accurately.

It should do more monitoring of the city administrator's and finance director's time spent working and revise if necessary.

Could this last statement have something to do with our past Finance Director?

LINK HERE
For the skinny on the last Finance Director and our City Leadership.

Disclaimer

The opinions expressed by the Centerville Citizens for Ethical Taxation and Representation bloggers and those providing comments are theirs alone, and do not always reflect the opinions of the CCETR. We are not responsible for the accuracy of any of the information supplied by the comments made in this blog.
This blog is an outlet for the citizens of Centerville to have a voice and freely express their opinions, as guaranteed under the First Amendment.
The CCETR reserves the right to remove any threatening or profane comments made on this blog. It is our intent to provide the most accurate and current information regarding the City of Centerville. We invite The City Staff and its Administrator to "correct" or comment on any info. they see misleading or untrue.

Quotes From Citizens

Recent Statements from the Centerville/Lino Lakes Blog
Link Here

Consolidation is the right thing to do. I have done some research and spoken to the league of cites in St. Paul. In order to get a consolidation to a vote to the general public, you need a petition signed by 5% of registered voters that voted in the last govenor election. 1603 citizens voted. That would amount to aproximately 80 signatures. Once the signatures are done, it is then presented to the city council which by statute they must post the consolidation to the citizens of centerville for a vote. If the majority vote in favor of the resolution. The consolidation moves forward. Taxes will be lower, our police service will be moved to Lino lakes which patrols all around our city, and the cost will be significantly reduced. Citizens you must know, our taxes in this city will always go up. We have no business, nor will we ever get any business. Lino lakes has the corner market on incentives for business. I love this city but hate the tax burden that is placed on all of us. We can do something about it. The time is now.
August 21, 2008 6:38 AM

Remember, Consolidation with Lino Lakes would mean that Centerville would dissolve and we would become part of the city of Lino Lakes and fall under their city government and rules.
August 21, 2008 12:50 PM

Let's do it. We can do it the same time as the state audit petition. We need our voice back in the this City.
August 21

I agree and so does my husband. He has said this all along.Centerville has 45% budget for Police??? Do we have enough residences for this amount of police force? I have a great birds eye view of Centerville Road and Main Street at night and you should see the amount of police cars doing 80 mph down Centerville road. You would think I live in the inner city.Do we have a candidate for Mayor? We should have a meeting about this soon.
August 21, 2008

I agree, lets go for it. Now is a good time. It seems that alot of voices in this city have fallen on deaf ears. I love this city,but our taxes just keep going up and up,something has to be done.
August 21, 2008 3:01 PM

Taxes keep going up because the City is trying to turn us into an Edina. We don't have the land share for this type of community. I see an beautiful old neighborhood that could be really quaint and charming but instead the City wants to bull doze it down and create a sudo town. They were hoping we all would just leave. I don't think we are going anywhere though!
August 21, 2008 5:56 PM

These statements are direct quotes found on Topix.com

"The February informational meeting was one of the biggest lapses of leadership I've seen in a very long time. A resident was given the microphone to speak his thoughts in front of the community. The resident was interrupted by a heated side discussion between city council rep Jeff Parr and another resident. In my opinion the man with the microphone should have had the floor. Dallas Larson was given back the microphone and at that point should have proclaimed order in the court, but instead allowed this heated discussion to continue. It was at that point that Mary Capra left the room to contact the police. They showed up shortly afterwards. In my opinion, what we needed was someone to step up to the plate and call a meeting to order. Instead it turned into a frustrating display and lack of leadership. Being that I am new to the ways of how our city works I hope that this was just an anomaly and not an example of leadership in other instances".

"If you think your taxes are high now just wait until they pass this Proposed 7.8 million dollar Road Improvement Project. They tell us the "City" pays 70% of this project. Guess what, that's us, the tax payers. Tell the council how you feel about this project at the Public Hearing on May 1st, it may be our last chance. Power in Numbers. Also, please sign our petition that asks the council to re-asses the scope of this project in these difficult economic time".

"Centerville city council just can't stop spending the taxpayers money. Bonds, new roads, buying buildings and parks, putting in trails. When will it end. We need new people for council and mayor".

"Wow - What a great turn out at the May 1 hearing. I'd say 400 people plus. I don't see how the council members or Mayor could pass this project as is and still sleep at night. The message was the same over and over. This is not the time for such an extensive project. Only do what is necessary at this time. If they pass the project as is I have to question their morals and ethics. Also if they pass it as is, we need to get them out of office because they obviously are not representing the people of Centerville".

http://www.topix.com/forum/city/centerville-mn

Thursday, July 24, 2008

Please Send Comments and Thoughts

We welcome comments, thoughts and general information regarding our City of Centerville. We will never post any personal information without consent.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...: Thank you for this outlet. I think it is extremely important for us all to know what is going on. Many don't have the time to pay attention but it looks like we should have been doing so a long time ago. Who is up for reelection this year?; 9:28 PM CDT
Anonymous said...: Paar and Lakso are ap as is the Mayor. I don't think Paar and Lakso are running again. How out there is considering it? We need some common sense up there. Affidavits of candidacy will be accepepted August 26 thru Sept 9,2008 for seats being vacated in 2009.
Save Centerville; 9:41 AM CDT
Anonymous said...: Thanks for the information. What we need is to find a couple of candidates we can support... Especially when it comes to the budget. Maybe should consider petitioning for a State audit like Hugo is doing. There are a lot of great questions on this blog, which leads me to conclude that all is not lost.; 5:50 PM CDT
Anonymous said...: Hello All,

I live in the older neighborhood (behind Kelly's) that is slated to be torn down in phase two. I have had to deal with Dallas on a continuous basis. One story I would like to share. My property along with my neighbors is now the home for the additional power lines for the new downtown development. We were given a notice on our doors that all of our trees would have to be trimmed or come down completely (I would have had the most trees lost completely) in our backyard. These trees give us some privacy from the Chauncey Barett Gardens. I ask Xcel energy what easement do you have to take down 6 of my trees? Some of my neighbors had already given the ok but I held out as I knew that I would lose more property value. Xcel told me this, and I quote, "The city told us they [City] already owned all these properties." I told him that I own this house and until I see an easement bought by the city or Xcel, they are not going to get my signature to take my trees. Xcel immediately said they were not touching anything until the city deals with the home owners.

I sent an email to Mayor Capra and she forwarded it on to Dallas (I also copied all the news stations and newspapers). Dallas called me ASAP and left a message that this was a miss-communication and it was Xcel that was in a hurry. This was curious because Xcel had no stake in the increase power needed at this time. Unfortunately, Xcel had already taken down trees in an elderly couples yard. Then, Xcel couldn't drive the truck over her neighbors yards (neighbors said no) and so they left the mess for the couple to clean up.

The increase power lines now reside in our front yards. Xcel did some trimming but nothing like what it would have been had they run it in the back yard.

My elderly neighbor lost the most in the entire ordeal. My question to Mayor Capra is, who is the advocate for the citizens? She never responded to any my questions.

Thanks for the outlet to speak our minds!

Margaret Lee; 9:06 PM CDT
Anonymous said...: Citizens For Centerville Consolidation

Visit http://centervillelinolakesconsolidation.blogspot.com/
To learn and share your thoughts now!

Okay citizens of Centerville - The link above is the path to your sounding board. Is consolidation with Lino Lakes the right move for Centerville? A growing number of people think that there could not be a better time to do so. Post your thoughts, ideas and concerns here and join in an open forum discussion with other citizens about your views on consolidation. Feel free to post your thoughts here or take part in our surveys on the right side of this page.; 4:03 PM CDT

Centerville Citizens For Ethical Taxation and Representation

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Thursday, July 24, 2008

Please Send Comments and Thoughts

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