IF YOU THINK YOUR PROPERTY TAX VALUATION IS TOO HIGH you’re likely right and can do something about it…next year. I called the number on our 2019 property tax statement in March to have the assessor come out and they reduced our valuation by $80K for 2019. My neighbors who did the same received a SIX FIGURE REDUCTION! Property valuations go up AND DOWN all the time due to a variety of factors in the marketplace. Unfortunately if you don’t get an evaluation of your specific property the formula used for the entire city will apply and you’ll likely see some big increases. You can call the assessor’s office or come to the open book meeting at city hall each spring to challenge your valuation. Don’t be afraid of the tax assessor. They are generally reasonable and fair, at least in Minnetrista.
Category: 2018 Archives
2018 Archived MGB Facebook posts
May 23, 2018
Very disappointed in the decision Monday night to ban all short term rentals without an exclusion for owner occupied properties or a grandfathering provision for existing vacation rental properties. It is sad we’ve let some very vocal residents trample on the property rights of our entire community. We could have kept new vacation rental properties out of Minnetrista residential areas while protecting those in our community that have been operating responsibly in the past.
May 23, 2018
Regarding the private message some of you (perhaps all of you?) received from the person behind the “Our Minnetrista” organization, I WILL PUBLICLY ADDRESS EACH LIE IN HIS MESSAGE:
1. “I supported her candidacy”. Prior to the election my neighbors reported they had found flyers from this organization campaigning against me. I did meet with the Our Minnetrista representatives when I filed to run but as soon as they discovered I wasn’t going to be a rubber stamp for the Mayor or staff they launched an effort to derail my campaign.
2. He claims the road budget was “slashed during the preceding four years.” The point here is that it wasn’t “slashed” 128% and that was the increase being considered. Yes, the road budget needed an increase but 128%, in my opinion, was extreme.
3. He claims “Council Member Bruce refused to answer my questions.” He never asked me a question but rather spoke at a public hearing where he had three uninterrupted minutes to speak. He never addressed a question to me. I, however, did ask the Mayor for an opportunity to respond to his allegations of being misled and stated that all the statements I had made in an op/ed column in the Laker were accurate and I stood behind them.
4. He claims to have been misled to think the 4.35% increase in the city’s tax levy (which just means the city’s budget) translated to a 4.35% increase in his property tax bill. That is just ignorance, but understandable given the complicated nature of property tax calculations in Minnesota. Many Minnetrista residents saw increases of more than 5% in the city portion of their property tax bill for 2018. Those figures are publicly available and easy to prove.
5. Lastly, in the MG blog post that seems to have ignited this smear campaign I was not questioning whether or not it was the “right decision” to pull snow plows off the city roads during a snow storm. I was questioning the decision to make a public announcement on the city’s website that they were being pulled because of blizzard conditions. That announcement, in my opinion, was unnecessary in the first place and, secondly, didn’t state the real reason for pulling the plows which had more to do with staffing levels than anything else. If I make a mistake I will apologize for it but I don’t apologize for what others do.
Short Term Rentals May 21, 2018
I’m hoping reason and common sense will prevail this evening and the council will realize that everyone has property rights, not just the loud and vocal. The easy, politically expedient path to take on short term rentals is to just ban them without considering future litigation, the hardship caused to responsible owners that have earned a livelihood from their businesses and who will have their investments destroyed by a piece of irresponsible legislation. Let’s address this issue responsibly and comply with Minnesota state law that protects property owners from having the rules changed to deny previously allowed uses. It’s the right thing to do.
We can find a way to prevent future properties intended solely as vacation rentals from locating in Minnetrista’s residential areas without trampling on the property rights of responsible people.
May 18, 2018
A CAMPAIGN TO DISCREDIT THIS BLOG IS UNDERWAY by supporters of the Mayor, specifically the individual behind the “Our Minnetrista” campaign that supported the Mayor’s candidacy. Blog followers have reported to me they’ve received personal messages alleging misinformation on the blog and casting doubt on my integrity. The person sending these messages is too cowardly to identify a single fact they can prove is untrue but rather chooses to go behind my back and make allegations. These tactics are precisely why I started this blog, to have a public forum out in the open where people can judge for themselves what the truth is. I encourage any of my readers to contact me directly if they have questions about anything on the blog. This person is too cowardly to do that knowing his underhanded deceit will be called out. It is sad that a council member can’t express viewpoints that don’t coincide with the Mayor’s without being personally attacked.
May 17, 2018
Frontier Communications being investigated. Minnetrista customers watch your bills for information on public hearings.
May 17, 2018
MINNETRISTA PROPERTY RIGHTS ARE BEING TARGETED and homeowners that have been able for decades to rent out their homes as vacation rentals will no longer be able to do so if a proposed ordinance passes next week. Despite the fact there are no specific complaints on record relative to any short-term rental usage of any kind on any properties within Minnetrista, the city council seems poised to ban short term rentals of less than 30 days. People that invested hundreds of thousands of dollars to purchase a house as a vacation rental business and have been responsible property owners for decades will have their businesses taken away by the city. So far there appears to be no inclination to grandfather these soon to be non-conforming properties as Minnesota state law requires (Minn. Stat. Section 462.357, subd. 1e).
What the city has done in the proposed ordinance is declared all short term rentals a public nuisance (which clearly they all are not as most have been operating responsibly for decades). In Minnesota, state law requires a standard of proof that a city must meet before declaring something a public nuisance, otherwise a local government could just arbitrarily declare anything they wanted to control, or get rid of, a nuisance (lawn mowers, dogs, etc.). That standard requires proof of a number of separate behavioral incidents committed within the previous 12 months. This standard has not been met by the city of Minnetrista and leaves the city wide open for litigation if it chooses not to grandfather these non-conforming properties and to make provisions for them in this ordinance.
The city council is unanimous in the desire to prevent future properties from being purchased in Minnetrista solely as vacation rentals in residentially zoned neighborhoods. There are constitutional issues involved, however, that need to be addressed in this ordinance to avoid taxpayer dollars from being needlessly spent on future litigation that could’ve been foreseen.
May 8, 2018
Property rights in Minnetrista are being threatened by a proposed ban on the long established, legitimate use of property to generate income for homeowners. Short term rentals (STRs) have been in the news a lot recently with the popularity of VRBO, Airbnb and other sites that make it easy for homeowners to manage renting their properties. Several homes have been purchased in Minnetrista solely for that purpose where the owner resides elsewhere. There are state laws that protect homeowners from local governments changing the rules and leaving them high and dry without grandfathering what was previously a legitimate use, but cities can circumvent those state laws by declaring something a public nuisance and that appears to be the route Minnetrista is taking. Obviously not all short term rentals are a public nuisance or the city would be overrun with complaints and so far they don’t have any documented complaints due to short term rental usage on any properties within the city. I guess the city thinks by simply announcing STRs are public nuisances it makes it so?
The only good thing that came from last night’s council meeting on the subject was an agreement to carve out some kind of exemption for people that actually live in their home. Staff seemed rather confused about what that should look like though. Should it exempt them entirely? Should the frequency be limited? Should certain activities be banned? The Mayor read off a list of things she suggested should be prohibited including dogs, wedding parties, parties of more than 6 people, parking on city streets, etc., etc… I don’t know how staff can possibly bring back a solid, enforceable ordinance when we don’t even understand the problem yet. Understanding just doesn’t appear to be a priority…
May 8, 2018
MAYOR GOES ON TIRADE ABOUT MINNETRISTA GOVERNANCE BLOG POST AT COUNCIL MEETING. On April 14 the city announced on their website they were pulling snow plows off their routes due to “ongoing severe blizzard conditions”. The real reason, however, had little to do with the snow and everything to do with the fact that several of the city’s plow drivers had been allowed to go on vacation and the city was understaffed. Nobody’s at fault there…we usually don’t get snow in mid-April. Plow drivers need to sleep and that’s important. But that’s not the reason the city gave for pulling the plows. They didn’t say they were understaffed, they said it was because of the snow (at the time of the MGB post I was unaware of the understaffing). I actually praised our public works department on the blog post in a comment stating “I think our public works dept does a great job clearing roads..” and they do. The blog post, in retrospect, was perhaps opportunistic in calling out what I saw as a ridiculous reason for taking snow plows off the roads. After all, snow plows are made to plow snow. I learned last night it was the Mayor who consulted with staff to post the announcement which explains the tirade at the end of our council meeting. I’m glad to know she’s reading my blog. 
🙂
🙂May 4, 2018
Some additional thoughts on short-term rentals. Whatever problem a city is dealing with, imposing a complete and total ban should always be a last resort, an extreme measure when no other alternatives are possible. Short-term rentals are and have been a long-established, legitimate activity of responsible homeowners serving a purpose to provide them extra income. I believe there is a constitutional issue here that the city leaves itself vulnerable to litigation over if it decides to ban short-term rentals.
Banning these rentals for homesteaded properties may seem good in the abstract but there are unquestionably unintentional consequences that will prove it problematic in practice. There are less extreme approaches other cities have taken to deal with this issue and I think they are worth exploring.
Simply registering these properties, requiring a small registration fee (large fees have been shown to discourage registration), and then having property owners put up a bond that neighbors can make a claim against if an ordinance is violated, could be a less extreme option. The next step up would be requiring a permit or license with specific regulations governing the activity. The last, and most extreme measure would be a complete ban.
I think the council needs to consider the implications, intended and unintended, of any measure we adopt, preferably before its adopted.
Minnetrista Governance Blog 