Winslow’s city council voted on the new property tax levy during their regular meeting last week. The rate at which the residents are taxed went down but that does not mean the amount of taxes people are paying will go down.
The city will collect an additional approximately $25,600 in taxes despite the rate falling from last fiscal year’s rate of $1.3245 to $1.2963. This is because of the rising home costs the city is experiencing, however a dramatic shift in the price of housing has minimal impact on the rate of taxation. There are caps to how much the assessed value of a home or property can increase year to year but for a town of roughly 9,000 people it is unlikely anyone will see large increases in their taxes.
City Manager David Coolidge began his report speaking about how the county recently performed a survey of the levee and submitted it to the Army Corps of Engineers for the first round of comments. Soon they will be doing 400 borings to gather soil samples to be sent to Los Angeles for testing; they think that will be approved to be done around the end of August. The samples will come from around the levee but also in adjacent properties in case they need more usable sentiment for the project later. Coolidge said, “They are still on track to complete design by the end of year 2025. So they’re right on schedule.”
Coolidge also gave an update about several of the city’s capital projects. The first being the new city hall which is the old Lee Medical building on the corner of Kinsley Avenue and Third Street. A new sign has been placed marking the building as city hall. The finance department will be moving to the new building, so residents who pay their bills in person will need to go to that location once the department has been relocated.
Coolidge said, “We have furniture being delivered on the 14th of August and I am tentatively hoping we can move in the week of the 19th and begin operating the week of the 26th.” The other departments being moved are the city clerk, administration, human resources and the economic developer’s office.
The current city hall will become the city’s Development Services building and house public works, community development, IT and transit.
Coolidge also talked about the possibility of the building next to the police station further west on Third Street being transitioned into a more permanent city hall. He said that City Clerk Suzy Wetzel was able to find plans of what that would look like because it was an idea the city had previously pursued. Coolidge remarked that it’s a 31,000 sq.ft. facility and it would be large enough for them to build a meeting hall for the city council instead of using the chamber of commerce’s meeting space.
Another capital project was brought up, the renovation of city basketball courts at Hayden Walton Sports Complex, which has been delayed. The city decided they wanted the hoops to be the same size as the high schools’ so it was closer to what kids are used to. The new basketball courts will begin construction on Sept. 3, and take approximately two weeks to finish.
Winslow Chamber of Commerce CEO Bob Hall also gave his quarterly report in which he spoke about all the work that goes into growing Winslow’s tourism industry. Hall shared a commercial the chamber produced for Winslow that will be airing on 12News in Phoenix.
Hall said, “I venture to say this is the first time Winslow has had a commercial on TV.” The commercial points people to Clear Creek, La Posada and the ruins of Homolovi and it will be shown 250 times over the next two months. Hall also spoke about another advertising campaign they are working on. Hall introduced it saying, “People come from all corners of the world, fly into Las Vegas (and) go to the Grand Canyon.” This gave the chamber the idea to take out digital billboards in the Las Vegas airport to entice people who are going to the Grand Canyon to keep going east to Winslow.
Councilmember Darcey McKee thanked Hall for all he and Angela Moser do at the chamber.
In other business, the council:
* Proclaimed Aug. 4-10, as National Farmers Market Week.
* Approved an amendment to the Affordable and Workforce Housing Incentive Program that increases the amount of affordable housing a developer must have to receive certain incentives from 10% to 20% to better match original intent of the program.
* Approved an increase in municipal court user fees from $30 to $45.
* Approved a donation of $5,000 to Just Cruis’n Car Club for its annual car show on Oct. 4-5, they waived the vendor fees.
The next meeting of the Winslow City Council will be held at 6:30 p.m. on Tuesday, Aug. 13, in the meeting room located at 523 W. Second St.
