The Browerville Mayor gave me a call this morning and pointed out an interesting section in his local paper: The Browerville Blade (May 14th, 2009 Edition).  It states:

Plats for new property developments will all now have to be approved by the Todd County Surveyor before they receive final approval.  Until now, new developments within the limits of Todd County towns (cities) were exempt from that requirement.

Todd County Recorder Cheryl Perish said she asked that the surveyor review all plats because there had been some problems with property boundaries on plats.

The review will be paid for by the developer.

I think all cities will have something to say about this.  I will be asking our commissioner to continue to have Clarissa exempted and obtain further clarification.  

I am going to highlight my thoughts on this here.

1. If the county is going to take away authority of cities, who have handled this process for decades, I think at minimum a representative of our county should have contacted the cities to get their perspective and input.  Cheryl Perish, nor our commissioners, ever contacted any of the cities that I am aware of.  I appreciate the heads-up from Mayor Aksamit.
2. In most cities our size we (cities) are generally the "developer".  We do not have the size and scale to attract private developers.  Thus for years we have handled planning and zoning, hired attorneys, engineers, etc.  The county is basically saying that they are now going to require this be done twice according to the article.  Twice the cost for the same result paid for in many cases by the taxpayer.
3. There are and will always be problems with property boundaries.  For Ms. Perish to take this unilateral action on her own giving just this reason above I find naive and offensive.  To think because it is all done by the county that problems with boundaries will disappear is, again, naive.

Side note:  This blog as always been about giving my initial thoughts after reading something in the paper.  I have a message into our commissioner to get some further clarification to ensure I have all of the facts.  If I am wrong on any points I will gladly retract those areas I am in error on.  However, that I have to hunt down answers on such an important issue is stunning.

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