Call me naive, but I still have faith that the city of Luverne and Rock County will work out their joint agreements and live happily ever after.OK, after saying that, I’ll be called a lot more than naïve, but I do think there’s hope. So far, personalities have clashed, and each side’s numbers haven’t matched when they’re debating budgets.But in the end, I think the interests of all residents will be served.I come to this faithful conclusion after sitting through numerous county and city discussions about their shared contracts. Most of the elected people and staff have said that they don’t want to sever the relationships forged through many years of cooperation.On the Luverne side, they want to save money. And on the county side, they don’t want to cut employees or have an unbalanced budget for the sake of saving the city of Luverne money. After all the fuss, it could just even out in the end.The city has put a few new fees on our utility bill, so they may not have to collect as much taxes for other services. But then again, they’ve re-assessed employee job descriptions and duties and adjusted salaries. In most cases that meant a raise, which will cost the city about $15,000 more a year. In other words, they’re saving extra and spending extra.The county has bigger numbers to worry about recouping, when dealing with the huge law enforcement burden.Maybe the county won’t pay the city as much as it used to for road maintenance agreements, so it can recoup a little money there. Or, it can charge more for sharing information held at the courthouse.It isn’t quite that simple, but after all the feuding and steam blowing, I think we’ll still have decent services at a decent price ... because we should have been wise enough to elect decent people. They have to look out for their constituents, which in some cases, are overlapping county and city residents. I’d love to see all our tax bills decrease, but I don’t want to lose services or quality of service for the sake of a few bucks per person. If the county and city are just trying to look at finances and fairness, that’s great. Some have suggested it’s more about egos and power, and I’d love to see those people proven wrong.At the end of all of this, if I was writing the city and county into a fairy tale — let’s say the beauty and the beast. They’d find a reason to kiss, and the kingdom would be in harmony once again.
