Politics
La Crosse Mayor Reynolds on housing, homeless, taxes and parking
La Crosse Mayor Mitch Reynolds in the WIZM studio Monday for La Crosse Talk PM discussing homelessness, housing, the city council, taxes, city services and parking.
La Crosse Talk PM airs weekdays at 5:06 p.m. Listen on the WIZM app, online here, or on 92.3 FM / 1410 AM / 106.7 FM (north of Onalaska). Find all the podcasts here or subscribe to La Crosse Talk PM wherever you get your podcasts.
After talking old cars and Olympics to begin the show, we got into how the city council has multiple special meetings on homelessness, right before Thursday’s monthly meeting.
To start the second half of the show (17:00) Reynolds brought up the city’s pool situation and how one could potentially need to be closed.
That led to a discussion about the balancing act the city council needs to maneuver between maintaining city services, increasing city revenue or raising taxes.
After that (25:00), we discussed housing as a way to raise revenue, including having FEMA remap the city’s floodplain.
Lastly (29:50), we discussed La Crosse’s parking situation, as the parking utility is running at a deficit.
Libertarian Guy
August 6, 2024 at 10:00 am
The mayor complained during this morning’s interview about lack of sufficient revenue. Examples: the frequent complaint about lack of state funding. Past City Council’s reluctance to increase taxes as much as they are legally allowed to increase them. He said we have to raise taxes or cut services suggesting those are the only two options. In short, he seems to be suggesting that the city is not taxing the citizens enough. Put another way, he’s encouraging City Council to start jacking up city taxes. He did mention the cost of debt service. What exactly is debt service? That’s money/interest that residents have to pay because of the city’s penchant for borrowing money. You know, the buy now pay later philosophy. The mayor did not mention that the city spent $42 million to renovate the lacrosse center and borrowed much of the money. That is a choice our city Council and mayor made. Buy now, pay later. City taxpayers are paying debt on other borrowed money as well like debt on the parking ramps. The mayor said nothing about the large number of businesses that have pulled out of lacrosse, particularly in the downtown area. There’s a reason why businesses are leaving our community, but that issue is never addressed. The mayor also did not mention that the city and county each received $22 million in federal ARPA money. That’s quite an inflation causing gift to the city. Yet, the city can’t balance its budget and is angling for a significant tax increase for 2025. The newspaper reported at 11% increase expected. The city is also planning huge expenditures related to brainstorming ideas related to the pathways home project. Hang onto your wallet lacrosse. Big spending liberals are in charge. And don’t forget the school board is planning to raise taxes in the amount of $54 million. They will parse that tax increase to make it sound like a low amount. But it’s still $54 million.
walden
August 6, 2024 at 12:36 pm
Looking at the state of downtown La Crosse, a $175,000 levy would be enough to send many of them packing. These articles never state how that levy is distributed among the businesses (ad valorem, sales revenue?) but it is still a lot of money. Several retail businesses have called it quits just this summer.
I was in Winona last week; I never thought I would see Winona’s downtown make downtown La Crosse look pretty rough by comparison.
What is strange is how quiet the downtown businesses are on these matters; not a peep from them.
R Head
August 6, 2024 at 1:14 pm
Why are street so bad, 3rd street is like a washboard if you park on the street you’re car could fall in. Maybe close it and let the homeless live there
LG
August 6, 2024 at 5:45 pm
I am surprised the mayor didn’t mention cutting police and fire protection. That’s what most politicians do when they’re considering raising taxes. No one wants essential services cut so that’s often a go to ploy to raise taxes. Proud of you, Mitch for not doing that. I am fully aware that the July 8, 2024 letter is proposing huge amounts of dollars to be spent on the homeless. For the 10 or so people that read these comments, you should all be aware the city is expressing interest in buying the Norwood motel on French island and turning that into a Shelter for the homeless. The purchase of that motel alone is $2 million. enough is enough, Mitch. You could put 160 people in an apartment in the community of their choice for $2 million. But if you keep offering benefits, they will be back in a year for more.