The "Preserve Dayton" Mayor and Council Candidates are at it again!!

Vote September 14 and return honesty, integrity, dignity and common sense to the city of Dayton!!

You’ve heard the issues . . .

Now get the truth !

 $51,000 per family to get sewer & water ?!?!?                             

Mayor Jadwin and the other "Preserve Dayton" council candidates are quoting these types of numbers to scare the citizens of Dayton. 

If it really does cost this much money to provide sewer and water to Dayton, how did the rest of the cities in the metro area ever get sewer and water?!?!?!? 

You won’t find these numbers printed anywhere other than their election materials.  The real numbers range from around $20K (sewer / no water) to $26K (sewer / water) per assessed unit.  These figures also include new roads and storm sewers.  For reference, a new, individual septic system is ~$8-13K and a new well is around $6K.  (Ref:  June 15, 2004 Memo to Dayton from the city's Engineering consultants). 

Large city infrastructure projects cost a significant amount of money, but simply dividing the total cost of a project by the number of existing homes to arrive at these types of costs is just plain foolish.  Cities issue bonds to improve and "invest" in the future of their city.  How many of us would live in houses if we had to buy them with cash? 

Mayor Jadwin and the other “Preserve Dayton” Council members have been told by 3 different city consultants how financing for these projects is accomplished:  Bond to pay for public improvements, collect payments from those who benefit (assessments), and the rest is paid by future business or future residents.  Mayor Jadwin and the other Preserve Dayton candidates either don’t understand this concept or choose to purposely mislead Dayton’s citizens.    Rather than discuss Dayton's future sewer needs with the Metropolitan council, The "Preserve Dayton" majority have decided to promote  a relatively unproven alternative.

Experimental Septic Systems as a Permanent Solution?

It is good policy to explore all options and perform research before spending Dayton’s money on any large capital project.  The problem is that this “Preserve Dayton” Mayor, Council and Council candidates behave as if no one has thought about sewer & water for Dayton before.  The sewer and water issue has been studied by previous councils for years.  They(the Preserve Dayton Group) often ignore advice from Dayton’s hired consultants (the Planners, Engineers, or Attorneys who also advise many other cities in the metro area). 

A consultant would never advise Dayton to utilize experimental septic systems as a long term solution  The technology is too new – less than 10 years.  We do not want to be the testing ground for these types of systems.

An approved development in Dayton is estimating $600,000 to put in an experimental septic system to serve 30 homes (that's $20,000 per home!).  It will last 25 years and take up ~4 acres of land (not included in the cost per home).  This does not include the cost of future hook-ups, streets, maintenance, water, or monitoring for the system.  Is this really a cheaper alternative?  As a short-term solution, this is better than 30 individual systems, but it is not a permanent solution!

These systems are NOT designed for commercial & industrial waste and would NOT be available to our industrial area. 

Businesses of any significance cannot develop in Dayton without sanitary sewer and water – which leads us to our next issue... high taxes . . .

(more to come . . .)

Paid for and distributed by Citizens for Open Government

11240 109^th Ave. N., Dayton, MN  55369

Email your questions, comments, or concerns:  (voteno2pd@yahoo.com)

Get the FACTS:  Call Dayton City Hall (763-427-4589)

Go to the City of Dayton’s website (http://www.ci.dayton.mn.us/)