Letter- Leery of track purchase

Dear Editor

The Hudson City Council should be very leery of removing the dog track from the tax rolls. If developed commercially, the dog track can bring a lot of money in tax revenue which will help lower our taxes. Here are just a few things to consider:

1. Approximately and conservatively, $1.2 million can be collected if the dog track stays zoned commercial. Here is the breakdown: $515,000 for our schools, $319,000 for our city, $124,500 for our county, $83,500 for vocational district and $12,000 for the state.

2. The dog track is 1/3 of the available commercial property left within the city limits and there is no more available property for the city to add when it comes to commercial property.

3. The city does not zone contingent. The school board should have come to the city first with the request because the referendum is useless if the city chooses not to rezone. Refer to my first 2 points. Would you rezone if you knew there was other land that would not have much of a negative impact on your taxes?

4. There is no requirement in the State of Wisconsin for acreage to build a school. Refer to below site: Ref: http://media.cefpi.org/issuetraks/issuetrak0903.pdf

5. There is plenty of acreage available to expand the current high school.

6. Our taxes will go up much more than $22.50 (for the next 18 years) for a home worth $250,000. Don’t forget to take into account the loss of commercial revenue from acquiring the dog track and the build out of a new school which will be well into the millions. I will guess $70 – $80 million dollars. And you can add to that total the yearly cost of the staff required to operate a big new school.

Please understand that I am not anti-school or anti-secondary education. However, these are all factors that we need to be aware of as voters before going to the poll. The more misleading information I am receiving from the school district, the more convinced I am to vote “no” on April 3.

Tags: opinion, letters, education