To hold the line on property taxes, the city must focus on four priorities:

-- Reduce city spending and reliance on property taxes through increased consolidations of city and county operations.

-- Play a leadership role in working with other cities at the State Capitol to maintain important state property tax base disparity programs, such as Local Government Aid and Fiscal Disparities, which greatly reduce St. Paul's property tax burden.

-- Expand the city's tax base by recruiting new businesses, cleaning up the over 1,500 acres of polluted sites and building and renovating more housing.

-- Be fiscally responsible in using public subsidies or incurring debt for future business development.

Mayor Coleman, however, recently proposed an 8.2 percent spending increase for the 2002 budget using $7 million in budget reserves and a number of one-time uses of fund balances in an effort to have no increase in the property tax levy. It is not fiscally responsible for the city to use one-time budget reserves and fund balances to increase ongoing operational spending.

The city currently has a AAA bond rating, which is good. However, the recent property tax changes by the Legislature will reduce tax increment finance (TIF) revenues on existing TIF development projects with outstanding debt. Unless changes are made by the Legislature in the next session, St. Paul's TIF debt will be too high and will require property tax increases.

The city will need to continue financing the cost of pollution clean up to make land available for new commercial development, housing and creating new industrial parks. In the short run, the city will need to provide fewer subsidies for development. In the long term, I would like to work with the Legislature to fund new or expanded development tools for revitalizing our urban core, such as the Livable Communities grant program.

Long (e-mail: campaign@longforsaintpaul.com) is a former St. Paul City Council member. For more information, go to his Web site: www.longforsaintpaul.com/ .