I’ve written a few blogs about the annexation issue related to Special Assessments; my common example is the Red River Valley Fairgrounds.  The Fairgrounds are not in the city of West Fargo although they use our water, sewer, garbage, and you can’t get there without driving on West Fargo roads.  So, when Main Avenue was rebuilt a number of years ago they didn’t have to pay a penny while everyone else received an assessment that was actually about 30% larger than it would have been if the Fair Grounds had paid their ‘fair’ share.  This should be illegal.

However, this isn’t the only issue of fairness that exists with how Special Assessments are handed out in West Fargo.  The current guidelines used by the city for assessing costs related to our major collector roadways creates another significant issue.  The current guideline is to assess those projects basically a mile (sometimes less) in each direction.  An example of this is the section of Sheyenne Street from 13^th Avenue to Beaton Drive which was discussed earlier this week in the Special Assessment Commission meeting.  Properties to the west and east (all of Charleswood) are assessed.  That might appear to make sense until you start layering years of projects together and look at what happens. 

Here is an example.  If you live east of 9^th Street on 16^th Avenue you will only ever fall into assessments for your street, 13^th Avenue, or 9^th Street.  If you live over on 6^th Street West (which is west of Sheyenne Street) you will only ever be assessed for your street, 13^th Avenue, or Sheyenne Street.  Here is the issue…if you live in Charleswood you get assessed for multiple North/South roads in addition to 13^th Avenue!  I believe in my example those homes would use our collector streets approximately equally.  However, we are actually forcing our residents that live between Sheyenne Street and 9^th to pay significantly more assessments over time to the benefit of people who live either west of Sheyenne or east of 9^th.  If we are going to continue using Special Assessments as our main financing tool for city infrastructure we must do a better job of making sure that we treat all properties in an equitable way.  It seems to me that the solution is to assign every property in the city to a single north/south collector road and a single east/west collector road so we make sure that we are treating properties equally in regards to the burden of special assessments.