Paid political letter: Vote ‘Yes’ on Lake Mitchell Initated Measure on June 6th

Ideas and opinions in this letter are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect the stance of this paper. The author of this letter has paid for its placement.

A very important vote will take place on June 6th concerning the future of the Lake Mitchell clean-up effort. We will be voting to allow the city to sell 8 previously platted public lake lots on North and South Harmon. The sale of these lots have been projected to raise about 1 million dollars and an increase of property tax receipts. The city council has designated these funds for the dredging and drawdown structure projects.

The city owns 44,400 linear feet of lake front and this sale would only be about 1,076 feet or 2.4% of the total. The lots are between existing privately owned lots and would therefore not affect existing hiking and biking trails. Many of the lots are hard for the city to maintain and get little usage from the public. Also, through city and volunteer efforts, more commonly used areas like the City Beach, the Indian Village boat ramp, the Day Camp and other areas have been cleaned up for better public access.

The Forward 2040 strategic action plan indicated that a top priority of the people of Mitchell was to improve water quality in Lake Mitchell and enhance lake usage. Several studies have indicated that dredging with a drawdown structure will be an important method of accomplishing that. The combined cost will be up to 25 million dollars. A state revolving fund loan is available. However, the sale of lake lots combined with the sale of the Kelley property, donations received by the Friends of the Firesteel (FOF) Committee, and budgeted monies will greatly reduce the amount of money the city would have to finance.

Please support the lake clean-up efforts by voting in favor of selling these lake lots to generate needed revenue.

Thank You.

BrianTemple, FOF Committee

Mitchell, S.D.