Brainerd City committee asks staff to develop franchise-fee mockup after limited public turnout

The Brainerd City Personnel Finance Committee on Jan. 20 directed staff to develop a detailed mockup of a potential franchise-fee structure and present it to the council for review after staff reported that two recent open houses produced no public attendees.

“We're bringing this item back from a little over a year ago,” the city engineer said, summarizing outreach: staff held two open houses and received no attendees, and they presented to the chamber’s government affairs committee last December to gather business input. The engineer said staff is seeking direction on whether to drop the idea, conduct more outreach, engage utilities to discuss fee structure, or form a staff/council committee.

Council members asked questions about equity and structure. One council member who has supported the idea argued it is easier to spread a smaller monthly charge across utility bills than to impose a large special assessment on property owners. “I’ve supported this every time it's been brought up for the simple reason…it's easier for me to pay a much smaller amount per my utility bills than it is to cover a much larger amount when I'm a property owner on the project,” the member said. Staff explained most cities use tiered monthly charges by user category (residential, small commercial, large commercial) rather than a per-usage therm or kilowatt-hour fee, which is rarer.

Some members expressed concern about timing: the city’s public utilities commission (BPU) is conducting a rate study and a committee member said adding franchise fees could complicate the pilot program. That member said they would not support pursuing a franchise fee at the full-council level until the BPU study and internal utility tax payments are settled, though they would support bringing a recommendation forward from committee for more detail.

A committee member moved to continue development of the franchise-fee structure and asked staff to present a mockup to council (skipping creation of a separate committee at this stage); the motion was seconded and moved forward in committee, though the transcript does not record a formal roll-call vote. Staff said they will next engage utilities as directed and prepare models showing how various fee structures would affect residential and commercial customers.

The meeting adjourned after concluding the franchise-fee discussion.