The recent "Outlook" letter and city survey from the City Administrator prompt me to write to express my disdain at what he is doing to diminish the cooperative spirit of our city and county governments in the name of claiming to find an "equitable solution" to funding the shared costs.When the joint powers agreements were established and put into effect, both county and city government officials then were convinced that the expenses incurred for county services were fairly shared by the city residents. Mr. LaFond stated in the "Outlook" letter that many contracts that were established 15-20 years ago have never been evaluated. Is he assuming that they were not evaluated simply because they were not amended in all that time? My interpretation would be that the officials felt that there was no need to rewrite contracts that were working well. LaFond also states in the "Outlook" that the city taxpayers are responsible for 60 percent of the costs of the Sheriff’s Department when the city accounts for only 19 percent of the county property value. Since when do the sheriff and deputies respond to calls from parcels of land? TAXPAYERS need the services of law enforcement, not PROPERTIES. The city represents at least 46 percent of the population of Rock County. It seems inequitable to expect that the remaining 54 percent of the outlying residents of the county should be expected to fund 81 percent of the cost for the services that are heavily demanded by city of Luverne residents. As a taxpayer, I don’t care whether my city taxes or my county taxes fund the services that are needed. I just want to have a strong, fairly paid sheriff’s department, reliable dispatch services, and the other services that we as taxpayers have come to expect in this beautiful, peaceful city where most of us got along with each other until LaFond took over as city administrator. And one final comment. It’s a shame that our tax dollars were used to print and send out such a biased, poorly worded, inflammatory questionnaire. LaFond needs to work for his high salary by finding innovative ways to save real dollars in the city budget, not simply to try to shift the deficit to the county board as their responsibility. A very concerned resident of Luverne,Esther Spease Frakes
