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<br />initiation of the project. This public involvement included decisions on which alleys needed <br />attention. The public involvement continued with a well attended public hearing leading to the <br />formation of the local improvement district. <br /> <br />Public involvement continued, and has culminated in a well attended public hearing on the <br />proposed assessments. Minutes of that meeting are to be found in the attached Exhibit A. <br /> <br />While the members of the public who appeared at the public hearing described in Exhibit A <br />objected to at least a portion of the assessment proposed for their property, few expressed any <br />doubts about the need for the alley improvements. A few members of the public who appeared <br />suggested that, rather than their property being assessed the entire cost of the improvements, the <br />City should pay a portion of the costs of the improvements. Most of the arguments suggesting <br />that the City pay some of the costs focused on the allegation that the improvements were <br />motivated by the need to correct problems leading to and associated with civil unrest in the area. <br />These property owners argued that, because the motive behind the improvement was to address a <br />problem that concerned either the entire neighborhood or the City as a whole, the costs of the <br />improvements should be shared more broadly. <br /> <br />The allocation of the benefits of a public improvement is a difficult policy decision, one that the <br />Council must make. In this case the Council was responding to the civil problems in the West <br />University Neighborhood when it examined alley assessments and established the current policy. <br />After discussing the improvements needed in the West University Neighborhood, the Council <br />looked at the Code policies and made it even more clear that adjacent property owners were to <br />pay the entire cost of the alley assessments. It is difficult to imagine a more clear affirmation that <br />the present assessments reflect Council policy. <br /> <br />Calculating and assigning benefits looks at tangible matters such as present and future use of the <br />public improvement. But it also looks at other, less easily measured elements of the overall <br />benefit of a public improvement. The question is not whether others might benefit from a public <br />improvement, the question that the Council must decide is whether the benefits received by the <br />properties to be assessed are reflected in the assessments they receive - whether the properties to <br />be assessed are sufficiently benefited to justify the assessable costs levied on them. <br /> <br />Of course the public in general benefits from public improvement projects, that is why the <br />projects are initiated as a public improvement. There are many public improvement projects <br />where there are no assessments levied. This is no doubt in part because of a determination that <br />no particular property benefits more than any other property. Where it is possible to identify <br />properties that do benefit more than the general run, then it is possible to consider assessing these <br />properties. In the case of the alley improvements, it is true that the West University Task Force <br />recommended alley improvements because this would help address problems of the West <br />University area as a whole. The problem of unrest in the area was one important factor, although <br />not the only one. Certainly the neighborhood and the City can benefit from improvements that <br />are designed to lessen the risk of unrest. But who among all the property owners in the City are <br /> <br />LOCAL IMPROVEMENT DISTRICT ASSESSMENTS FOR ALLEY IMPROVEMENTS IN THE WEST <br />UNIVERSITY NEIGHBORHOOD Page 5 <br />