At Monday night’s Fergus Falls City Council meeting the council tabled the much talked about 5% franchise fee added to Otter Tail Power, Great Plains Natural Gas, and Lake Region Electric Cooperative.
Fergus Falls City Administrator Andrew Bremseth said that folks are struggling and the timing isn’t right; “Based on the feedback from Council Members, the mayor, business owners, community members, and like over the last few days and weeks. The city determined that it’s best to just hit pause right now, the timing isn’t good for this discussion. I will acknowledge and I think everybody on the city council would acknowledge, that folks are struggling right now and so we totally sympathize with that. We know that times are tough, folks are trying to figure out how they’re going to make ends meet, and a lot of folks are on fixed income. So we determined that timing isn’t right we’re going to park this discussion indefinitely.”
The 5% franchise fee the city estimated would generate $984,000 per year. The city would use $216,000 for the Phase 3 street lighting while the remaining $768,000 would be used to fund street improvement projects. This would be in addition to the $412,000 the city budgets annually for seal coating and mill overlay projects.
The City of Fergus Falls already has franchise fees with Otter Tail Telcom and Charter that are dedicated for PEG Access.