1l. Letter Supporting A County Wide Levy for 1996 Prosecution CostsC
1995 •
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Enclosure
At our last City Council meeting Mike Fahey made his presentation
to the Chaska City Council. At that time the City Council went
on record supporting the County funding concept as outlined in my
letter and asked that I send letters to adjacent communities
urging them to take a similar position with the Carver County
Board.
If the City of Chanhassen concurs with this approach, I would
appreciate receiving copies of any letters summarizing your
position. Thank you for your continued cooperation. If you have
any questions concerning these issues, please feel free to
contact me at your convenience.
S
Pokorney
City Administrator
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June 28, 1995
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Mr. Don Ashworth
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City Manager
City of Chanhassen
64 S �tiNe 13, / 9� �� °^•
Chanhassen City Hall
P.O. Box 17
Chanhassen, , MN 55317
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Dear Don:
At a recent meeting concerning Carver County prosecution services
'
the general consensus
of the group was that the cities would
support Carver County
funding additional prosecution costs, if
any, through a County
wide levy as opposed to adding a surcharge
t
for 1996. Based on that consensus I did send the attached letter
to both Tracy Swanson
and John Siegfried expressing Chaska's
position.
P
C
I
i
' DP jai
Enclosure
At our last City Council meeting Mike Fahey made his presentation
to the Chaska City Council. At that time the City Council went
on record supporting the County funding concept as outlined in my
letter and asked that I send letters to adjacent communities
urging them to take a similar position with the Carver County
Board.
If the City of Chanhassen concurs with this approach, I would
appreciate receiving copies of any letters summarizing your
position. Thank you for your continued cooperation. If you have
any questions concerning these issues, please feel free to
contact me at your convenience.
S
Pokorney
City Administrator
June 13, 1995
Tracy Swanson
Carver County Commissioner
Carver County Courthouse
600 East Fourth Street
Chaska, MN 55318
Dear Tracy:
Recently, the City of Chaska received a letter from Mike Fahey,
Carver County Attorney, indicating his intent to seek a
modification in the prosecution contract to add a $22,500
surcharge to the City of Chaska for 1996 prosecution services.
in making the request, he is doing so based on what he has
indicated is an increased work load and the need to hire an
additional attorney. Further, he indicates that because of
decreasing fine revenues, the revenues associated with the
prosecution contract have remained constant or decreased over the
past years.
The purpose of my letter is to ask for your support addressing
this issue. First, our preference would be to continue the joint
prosecution agreements. Not only does such a joint approach
provide an efficient vehicle for the provision of these services,
but the current agreement assures a consistent set of prosecution
standards County wide.
Rather, though, than collecting the additional revenues through
an arbitrary surcharge process which will require annual review
and negotiations by each of the participating parties, a more
common sense approach would be to have County wide levy to cover
these costs. Based on the current Carver County tax capacity,
had the County levied an additional $82,000 Chaska 1995 property
taxes share would have been $22,800, an amount very similar to
the proposed surcharge. This mechanism, though, would eliminate
the need for developing a cost sharing formula and place the
responsibility for review of budgets and allocation of resources
with the County Board as opposed to the local communities who
would have a difficult time evaluating the County Attorney's
budget. Under this approach each of the participating cities
City of Chc ` ka - Minnesota One City Hall Plaza 55318 -1962 Phone 612-448 -2851'
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would continue to contribute 1/3 of the fine revenue with the
additional costs allocated based on a County wide levy.
After you have had an opportunity to review this proposal, I
would be interested in discussing it further with you at your
convenience.
DP: jai
Si