Beyond the Yellow Ribbon
Netters are still perfect
They helped, just like they said they would
Prior Lake has won its first 12 matches
Page 4
Page 15
www.savagepacer.com
SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 24, 2011
PACER
A return to ‘Camp’ Military officer visits Camp Savage site after 67 years
BY SHANNON FIECKE sfiecke@swpub.com
SUBMITTED PHOTO
Col. Charles Moriyama and his wife, Helen, stand in front of the Camp Savage historical marker just off Highway 13 near Xenwood Avenue. Moriyama was in town for a national counterintelligence conference. Hawaii. And, since it was the dead of winter, Moriyama and many of his cohorts saw snow for the first time. “You can imagine it
was quite an experience for us,” he said. “It wasn’t really that bad,
Camp to page 13 ®
‘Love should never hurt’ Awareness walk to include memorial for Prior Lake victim BY LORI CARLSON editor@plamerican.com
FILE PHOTO
Participants in last year’s walk look at T-shirts displaying names of those murdered as a result of domestic violence and child abuse.
In 2008, the high-profi le murder of newspaper reporter Ruth Anne Maddox by her husband, Charles “Tony” Maddox, startled residents into action. Ruth Anne died at the hands of her estranged husband, who in August was sentenced to 20 years in prison for second-degree murder. Authorities said Maddox crushed his wife’s neck with a door following an argument in the early morning of Nov. 11, 2008. She died of blunt-force injuries to her head and neck, and her body was found in the couple’s Prior Lake garage the next day. The city’s Community Safety Advisory Committee already had been working on ways to make Prior Lake a safer place before the murder
occurred, but domestic-violence prevention became an even higher priority after the issue hit close to home. On Saturday, Oct. 1, the committee will host the second annual Domestic Violence Awareness Walk at noon at Lakefront Park in Prior Lake. The mile-long walk will benefit Southern Valley Alliance for Battered Women, which serves Scott and Carver counties. This year, the Minnesota Coalition for Battered Women’s 2008 Clothesline Project will be on display. The display includes a memorial for Ruth Anne Maddox, whose sister also plans to come from Indiana for the walk. In the 28-year history of the alliance, Prior Lake is the first
Area mayors, superintendents and township clerks flipped through 13 pages of spreadsheets and bulletpoints Friday morning and listened to two state experts to better understand how a major change to the state’s property tax system will affect local residents and businesses. “We have a responsibility in government for transparency and accountability. This is clear as mud,” pronounced Prior Lake Mayor Mike Myser. During July’s special legislative session, the state eliminated the popular homestead property tax credit to save $261 million. This will push more of the cost of local government back onto local property taxes. Clear enough. But to soften the blow on lower- and middle-class homes, the state has instituted a market value exclusion that lowers how much of a home’s property value can be taxed and spreads the pain across all properties (including commercial and farmland). To accommodate the loss of the homestead credit, property tax increases next year range from 1.3 percent for lower-valued businesses to 4.3 percent for farmhouses. (Taxes will jump again next year for commercial property, however, due to a lag in the fiscal disparities tax program.) If the state had not chosen to buffer the homestead credit’s elimination by spreading out the tax difference, the property tax on a $75,000 home in Scott County would go from $456 to $760 – a 67 percent increase. Even state Rep. Michael Beard, R-Shakopee, couldn’t fully grasp the late-hour measure passed by his col-
Home value
Approx. increase
$185,600 ………………. $44 $278,300 ………………. $83 $371,000 ………………. $121 $556,700 ………………. $192 leagues. “The reason I came this morning is because I was in the dark,” he said during the meeting at Prior Lake City Hall. Adding to the confusion is the fact that the change shrinks the county’s tax base, which means tax rates automatically go up, even if schools, cities and townships hold their levies flat. It automatically bumps Scott County’s tax rate up 4.1 percent. “This has the effect of increasing taxes on every property assuming that value stays exactly the same,” explained Keith Carlson of the Minnesota Inter-County Association. Although there have been calls for repeal, Patricia Nauman of Metro Cities, an association representing metropolitan municipalities, said it’s unlikely the Legislature will reinstate the homestead credit given the lack of other sources of funding. “While this is not perfect, it creates a lot more transparency in the system,” Nauman said, adding that her organization has long wanted to get cities off the hook for the credit. Although the homestead credit was supposed to provide property tax relief by supplementing local government coffers with state taxes, it has failed to live up to its promise
Homestead to page 6 ®
Portion of Highway 13 closed next weekend Highway 13 will be closed between the Highway 13/101 intersection and 126th Street from 10 p.m. Friday, Sept. 30, to 5 a.m. Monday, Oct. 3. A detour will use County Road 18 and Highway 42. Eastbound and westbound Highway 13/101 will remain open. The weekend closure is needed as crews install sanitary sewer and water pipes beneath Highway 13. Road closed Detour
169 13th Ave.
101 126th St.
18
13
140th St.
N
42
Walk to page 3 ®
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Tax increase due to credit elimination
Flag Ave.
BY ALEX HALL
It was 1944, and the country was at war with Japan (among other nations, of course). The military needed JapaneseAmerican soldiers who could speak the language, for a myriad of reasons, to help defeat the Japanese. That’s when 18-year-old Charles Moriyama, a freshman at the University of Hawaii, volunteered to attend Camp Savage, a Japanese language school for soldiers, here in Savage. Moriyama, who was born and raised in Hawaii, was inspired to enlist in the Army (the only military branch at the time that accepted Japanese-American soldiers) after his brother had enlisted. Recruiters from Savage had actually come to his campus, and he was swayed by their proposal. “They told us if we volunteered for service, we wouldn’t have to take the semester exam and they would give us [an automatic] passing grade,” Moriyama recalled, laughing. But that obviously wasn’t his only reason for enlisting. “I guess like all young Americans, given what had happened, I wanted to do something to help the country,” he said. In February 1944, Moriyama arrived at Camp Savage with a group of 300 soldiers from
Homestead credit’s demise will be felt
Dakota Ave.
SAVAGE
$1
Graphic by Lorris Thornton
VOL. 18 ISSUE 8 © SOUTHWEST NEWSPAPERS