LJS: Candidate, home builders spar over roads funding

By Deena Winter / Lincoln Journal-Star
Friday, May 1, 2009

A Lincoln City Council candidate has accused a home builders group of pushing the idea of making Lincoln property owners pay for improvements — such as street repairs — while building new roads with property tax dollars.

Democratic candidate Gene Carroll said the Home Builders Association asked him just two questions when he met with them before they had decided whom to endorse. The questions: Did he support charging special assessments to property owners to improve streets near their homes? Would he support allocating 10 percent of property tax dollars to fund construction of new streets in new developments?

Carroll said he’s “absolutely opposed” to both proposals. The Home Builders did not endorse him, which led him to believe those were pivotal issues on which the group based its endorsements.

But Fred Hoppe, president of the Home Builders Association of Lincoln, said while some home builders support the concepts, the group has no policy endorsing the proposals. He said Carroll falsely implied the home builders want all taxpayers to pay for new streets and benefitting property owners to pay for improvements in the city.

He said Carroll made similar accusations during a recent debate and he called him to correct him.

“I told him his understanding of how city finance works was flawed because no one’s proposed any change to the assumption that if you put in a new subdivision, you put in the streets. You’d only be talking about arterials, collectors, streets that don’t directly reach inside the subdivision.”

He said Carroll indicated he wouldn’t repeat the allegation and he called it “pretty cheesy” that Carroll raised the issue again Friday in a news release and radio ad.

Carroll said he agreed after talking to Hoppe that the concepts are not an official plan of the home builders.

Hoppe said Home Builders Association members could ask any question of candidates during their interviews. While questions about those ideas may have been asked of Carroll, he said, they weren’t asked of every candidate and weren’t the deciding factor in endorsements.

“Let’s be honest about it, clearly his demeanor and his answers to questions like that led to the reason he wasn’t endorsed,” Hoppe said.

Hoppe said he personally thinks benefitting property owners should pay for new water lines, or sewers or major street overlays, but thinks the city should pay for routine repairs.

“What is the difference in benefit when somebody completely re-does a street?” Hoppe asked. “My personal opinion is everything should be specially assessed. I would love to see such a movement but I wasn’t envisioning going out and ordering some special hats or flags to march in the Lincoln Day Parade.”

Developers already pay for new streets in subdivisions, he said, and pass the cost on to property owners; the city pays for arterial and collector streets.

Special assessment districts are used in some cities to make infrastructure improvements, but haven’t been widely used in Lincoln since the 1990s. They must be approved by a majority of benefitting property owners and the City Council. Money from the city’s special assessment fund is used to pay for the work, and benefiting property owners repay the fund, plus interest.

http://journalstar.com/articles/2009/05/01/news/local/doc49fb76c0b72e773...