Stormwater Ltr, Oakland, St.Lukes ChurchDEC-1G-2002 08:48 DUGGAN IOWA REALTY 56~ 55G 27~47 P.OlxO1
St. Luke's United Methodist Church
1199 Main Street, Dubuque, Iowa 52001-4778
phone:(563} 582-4543 fax: (563)582-2307
December 13, 2002
Dear Mayor Duggan,
I wish to express my concems about the concept of a Stormwater Utility with members of the City
Council of Dubuque. I understand something significant needs to be done to alleviate the stormwater
problems in the city. My concem is that this should be funded by property taxes, rather than by the fees
of a utility. In this case property owners should contribute to the cost based upon the valuation of their
property, this improvement to our city warrants a tax increase, if necassary.
To begin to assess a fee to the non-profit organizations of the city is poor policy and will establish a bad
precedent. Non-profit organizations have been exempt from property taxes throughout the generations
because of the services they offer their communities and because of the ways in which they benefit
their communities other than by paying taxes.
It is impossible to imagine a healthy and vibrant city, such as Dubuque, without the community
contributions of hospitals, colleges and other educational facilities (both public and private), churches,
church-related institutions and a host of other public service-minded organizations. The membership
and the constituency of each of these organizations live and work in Dubuque; they own property in
Dubuque; they pay property taxes in Dubuque.
Consider, for instance, just three of the services St. Luke's United Methodist Church offers its
community. First, tourists from many parts of the nation and from foreign countries, as well as citizens
of Dubuque, stop in and view our Tiffany windows - one of the ten largest collections of Tiffany
ecclesiastic glass in the world. Second, each Saturday evening we serve a free hot meal to persons in
need in our community. Frequently this year we have served 110 -120 persons in an evening. All total,
we have served 2,256 meals during the past 26 weeks. At a cost of $5 per meal, this constitutes an
annual contribution to the city of $22,560 - all donated by members of the congregation. Third, for
twelve weeks each winter we offer free concerts on Friday noons to members of our community;
average attendance is 125 per concert.
To access a fee for city sewices to the non-profit organizations is to dishonor their contributions - and
will require their memberships to make additional contributions to pay this fee or will prompt them to
reduce or out their community services. Obviously, this becomes counter-productive if the city has to
pick up additional responsibilities dropped by the non-profit organizations.
Please plan to fund the stormwater improvements by increased property taxes and not by creating a
new utility which will assess fees against the tax exempt properties of Dubuque. Thank you for your
consideration of my concern.
Sincerely,
Jerry E. Oakland