LETTER TO THE EDITOR
To the citizens of Humphrey, as an elected city councilman, I was pleased to read Monica Veik’s letter to the editor last week. She brings up a lot of great points. I will try my best to answer her concerns and hope to show the city vision and leadership that has gone into making the decision to pursue a new municipal pool for our town.
I originally ran for city council because the pool issue was important to me and my family. As what often happens to city’s, other necessary infrastructure needs took the spotlight, such as the water tower and the lagoon project and budgeting for a “want” was put to the back burner. I feel strongly that timing is right now for this project. The amount of people thanking me for raising this issue convinces me more and more of this. But, the $3.1 million price tag is a bit hard to swallow. So, how do we pay for it? Currently, we have $500,000 in our capital account. City leadership plans to pursue a Civic Center grant, which is a matching grant. Today that grant would be worth $500,000. Capital campaign would be organized to raise $1 million in donations toward this project. The balance would come from a .5 cent temporary sales tax increases earmarked toward the pool note. We believe over 20-25 years the .5 cents collected would pay off this note. City leadership feels strongly that this is what the majority of Humphrey residents want and would support this.
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