MN city proposes settlement in muni-network debacle
The city of Monticello has proposed buying out bondholders of the troubled municipal Fibernet broadband network for $5.75 million, plus an estimated $3 million in escrow funds, to settle an impending class action lawsuit, Watchdog Minnesota has learned.
Read More →Hundreds facing financial losses from MN muni-broadband network
By Tom Steward | Watchdog Minnesota
Bill McKenzie’s email was short and to the point.
“I am (an) individual bondholder. Why doesn’t the city go to the reserve funds and pay the bond interest due on these bonds? You are hurting bondholders who loaned the city this money,” McKenzie wrote in frustration.
The plea went out last week [...]
Even in down year, MN taxpayers feel mosquitos’ sting
By Tom Steward | Watchdog Minnesota
ST. PAUL — In Minnesota, you can add mosquitoes to death and taxes to Ben Franklin’s proverbial list of the inevitable.
Make that a mosquito tax that takes a nearly $17-million bite annually out of taxpayers’ pocketbooks in the Twin Cities metro area — even in a year with an exceptionally cool spring [...]
Taxpayers burned as NEA-funded art goes up in flames
By Tom Steward | Watchdog Minnesota
ST. PAUL—It wasn’t long ago that burning works of art, whether books or otherwise, was frowned upon. But it was in vogue for at least a few minutes at 2 a.m. Sunday in St. Paul when a Twin Cities sculptor’s life-sized model of a local Marcel Breuer-designed house went up in [...]
Will $80 million windfall end in tax relief or government spending spree?
It’s an irresistible government program, and those who fall under its influence are much like characters from “The Lord of the Rings.”
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