Fargo City Commissioner Michelle Turnberg’s interview on The Steve Hallstrom Show
FARGO, ND – Fargo City Commissioner Michelle Turnberg is speaking out after being the lone dissenting vote Tuesday night when the Fargo City Commission approved the implementation plan presented to them regarding the Public Safety Sales Tax.
Turnberg praised the firefighters and police officers for coming up with a solution to a problem – the issue, they’ve been asking for better pay ‘for years,’ she said.
“They were actually quite far behind from some of their other peers and losing people because other departments pay better,” she told The Flag’s The Steve Hallstrom Show. “So what they did is they worked together, came up with this idea for a quarter-cent sales tax and they said it would be for safety – so for fire and police.”
Her vote
Turnberg explained her no vote.
“There were some improvements to the plan. Initially they wanted to pay off previous debt, previous debt that should have been budgeted for. Absolutely not, so that was taken out,” she said. “But I didn’t feel that the first priority of this should have been to make the people that actually brought this money into the city.”
Turnberg said the people are number one.
“That should have been number one, make them happy, hire more police,” she said. “And then, you know, the rest in capital, if we need some improvements, wonderful.”
She said none of the firefighters were thanked for their work.
She says she’s happy it’ll be revisited annually.
“We can see what the actual numbers are because it’s estimated eight and a half million per year,” Turnberg said. “Some years may be more, some may be less, but we can reevaluate and maybe take care of those pay inadequacies down the road.”
Turnberg says she’s frustrated with the need for a tax
Turnberg said she was frustrated at the fact that a tax was needed to ‘pay the people that keep us safe.’
“That, first of all, irks me that we even have to do this, but I was impressed that they had the gumption to do this, brought it before the commission,” she said. “It was approved.”
At Tuesday night’s Fargo City Commission meeting, she asked the attendees a series of questions. First – how many people in attendance were firefighters? Between 20 and 30 people raised their hands. She then asked how many went out and donated their own money. Everyone raised their hands. Similarly, they responded to a question about going-door-to-door and held meetings to talk with voters.
Then came a question that had a much different answer – how many are happy with the proposal? No one raised their hand.
“So I feel like we’ve done the fire a disservice and I think making them happy wouldn’t have taken that much more,” Turnberg said. “And this is bringing in eight and a half million dollars a year for the next 20 years. They weren’t asking to be the highest paid, but I think we could have given them a B plus instead of a C.”
