Council committee looks to educate on SIDs for street repairs

Havre City Council's Streets and Sidewalks Committee agreed Monday to bring in an expert to give a presentation on and answer questions about special improvement districts in an attempt to get some work going on repairing Havre streets.

Committee member Terry Lilletvedt said that the voters have denied two proposed mill levies the city put on the ballot to help fund street repair, and Havre needs to find some other way to fund repairs.

Havre Clerk and Finance Director Doug Kaercher said that when he was on the city council in the late 1980s and early 1990s, the city had more than 20 special improvement districts. Now it has two.

SIDs are created when residents of an area propose creating an entity - a neighborhood or specific region in a town or city - to implement repairs or upgrades or improvements such as on streets, curbs and gutters and so on and then if the majority of residents occur, the city creates the district. Bonds generally are sold to finance the work and the cost of the project is assessed as a yearly or monthly fee on the residents to pay off the bond.

Public Works Director Dave Peterson said he would contact Local Government Center at Montana State University in Bozeman to schedule a presentation in Havre on SIDs.

Watch for more in upcoming editions of the Havre Daily News.