Utica meeting examines fees on tax-exempt parcels as a way to raise street funds

Speaker 1, a meeting participant, opened an organizational discussion Tuesday night saying the intent was "to see what we can do and what we can't do to try to raise some money for the city." The discussion considered several models — a user or service fee, a frontage/curb fee tied to street maintenance, and targeted public-safety fees — and examined who would be affected if Utica pursued them.

The conversation centered on how much property in Utica is tax-exempt and therefore not captured by the regular property tax base. "What we've got in the city is in the grand scheme of things, we've got about 500,000,000 that's put into the whole wholly exempt category," Speaker 2, a staff member, said. Speaker 2 explained that roughly $100 million of that sits in Industrial Development Agency agreements and that once those are set aside the remaining exempt valuation would be lower.

The meeting reviewed parcel counts and…