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Petitions opposing parking ramp submitted to city; deadline met
Petitions containing about 4,600 names calling for a referendum on a proposed downtown parking ramp were submitted to the city auditor Tuesday, April 1, 1975.
Clarence Nikle, 2019 Oak St., chairman of the committee for the petitioners, said the signatures came from a “very, very good cross section” of Grand Forks residents. “It’s real representative,” he said.
Nikle turned in the last of his 93 petitions just before the 5 p.m. deadline, one month after the City Council passed an ordinance to finance the $2.8 million ramp.
The ramp, which would hold 490 cars, would be located across First Avenue N. from Central High School, between Fourth and Fifth Streets.
The petitions need 2,600 proven names of city voters to force councilmen to put the ramp issue to a public vote.
Nikle said most of the people he contacted were “receptive” to the petition. “Some were well-informed about it, others were just willing to give the people the right to vote.”
If enough signatures are verified, the question on the ballot would be the repeal of the ramp financing ordinance.
Nikle objected to the ordinance because it provides that all tax increments from the city’s urban renewal area would go to pay for the ramp, and because the ordinance leaves open the possibility of a deficiency levy against the entire city to finance part of the structure.
“I don’t want to mortgage my home” to pay for the ramp, Nikle said.
The ordinance says that the estimated $225,000 yearly ramp debt would be paid first by revenues from the ramp itself, then by tax increments from the urban renewal area.
Tax increments are the difference between the taxes collected in the urban renewal area now and before it became an urban renewal area.
If both those sources can’t pay the debt, up to $90,000 could be assessed against a nine-block area downtown.
If all three sources still haven’t covered the cost, a deficiency levy would be imposed on the rest of the city, the ordinance says.
The petitions were circulated under the city’s Home Rule Charter.
The other members of the committee for the petitioners were Leonard Bina, 1514 S. 15th St., an independent contractor, and Bernard Kresel, 928 S. 17th St., a body repairman at Wilcox and Malm.
Nikle is an employee and partner in Braseth Plumbing and Heating Co.
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