Business, Economics, and Taxes: Capitalism. Yay? >=(

[SJHovey]

the worst- there are a few families in Edina who paid over 20k for assessment, sold and moved to a different Edina location that was NOT on the published 3 year plan. Then the city changed it and they got hit for another 20k two years after paying the first.

you can imagine the anger. I think moving to property taxes is better but everyone who’s already paid is big, big mad

You're going to see a lot of cities moving to a system where the repair or replacement costs are just added to the budget, and not assessed.

Street assessments used to be pretty standard, typically done on a front foot basis. The bigger the lot fronting the street, the higher the assessment. The logic behind assessments, rather than including it in the general tax obligations, is that streets will be repaired or replaced on a need basis, and not based upon the political or economic power of certain individuals. If it's part of the general tax obligations, those with the most political or economic power will likely get their streets repaired first.

The law in Minnesota has always been that front foot assessments are legal, as a method. But sort of an unspoken part of the law is that the amount of the assessment cannot exceed the amount of the benefit to your property. Thus, if they assess you $16,000, they better be able to prove that the value of your property increased by at least $16,000.

The thing is, no one ever really fought the cities on this (can't fight city hall?). But recently that has changed. Honestly, even in a City like Edina it would probably be pretty hard to prove that your house increased in value by $25,000 just because you got a new street and curb. Plus, it's sort of an impossible proof problem. How does the City prove that?

I remember reading a story in the StarTrib about a very recent case out of St. Paul, I think, where the City got crushed in one of these challenges. I think the result is going to be that pretty much all cities are just going to include it as part of the cost borne by the taxpayers as a whole, which sucks for anyone who recently paid an assessment, I guess.

Also, as I recall our earlier discussion, I think we were talking about the large gain you've experienced in the value of your house. I am not a CPA, so take this with a grain of salt, but make sure you fit in all the rules for excluding some or all of that gain. I think you need to be in the house for a certain period of time. Also, I think that you can't use that exclusion if you used it recently.

Good luck on the sale.

[Handyman]

Best part is the city employs a full time sidewalk inspector…

Live Look:

[Deutsche Gopher Fan]

Jesus. I don't think GDO assesses main roads or sidewalks. And we clean every sidewalk every snowstorm. For a pennies compared to Edina.

Best part is the city employs a full time sidewalk inspector…

[dxmnkd316]

It’s also why so much of Edina is against sidewalks. They have had to pay for them. The city only removes snow from sidewalks if you’re a Main Street or within 3 blocks of a school. Walking around here is maddening because most streets won’t have a sidewalk

Jesus. I don't think GDO assesses main roads or sidewalks. And we clean every sidewalk every snowstorm. For a pennies compared to Edina.

[Deutsche Gopher Fan]

Oooof

i still can't believe it was 16k. That's psychotic. If I were a cakeeater I'd ask for all documents related to the bid process.

It’s also why so much of Edina is against sidewalks. They have had to pay for them. The city only removes snow from sidewalks if you’re a Main Street or within 3 blocks of a school. Walking around here is maddening because most streets won’t have a sidewalk

[dxmnkd316]

Not me- many have. The city said the lowest is usually around 16k, some of the mansions in west Edina (like suter and spurgeon hood) were closer to 30k with more property line.

when I was in mpls, I paid 1300 lol

my Edina road was done before I bought and it’s not on the planned map again.

the worst- there are a few families in Edina who paid over 20k for assessment, sold and moved to a different Edina location that was NOT on the published 3 year plan. Then the city changed it and they got hit for another 20k two years after paying the first.

you can imagine the anger. I think moving to property taxes is better but everyone who’s already paid is big, big mad

Oooof

i still can't believe it was 16k. That's psychotic. If I were a cakeeater I'd ask for all documents related to the bid process.

[Handyman]

Wait, how could filling the SPR at low rates be bad?

I dunno ask the media/morons.

[Deutsche Gopher Fan]

Wait, you have an assessment of $25k for the street!?!??!! Oakdale did ours including curbs for like $3.5k.

Not me- many have. The city said the lowest is usually around 16k, some of the mansions in west Edina (like suter and spurgeon hood) were closer to 30k with more property line.

when I was in mpls, I paid 1300 lol

my Edina road was done before I bought and it’s not on the planned map again.

the worst- there are a few families in Edina who paid over 20k for assessment, sold and moved to a different Edina location that was NOT on the published 3 year plan. Then the city changed it and they got hit for another 20k two years after paying the first.

you can imagine the anger. I think moving to property taxes is better but everyone who’s already paid is big, big mad

[dxmnkd316]

Wait, you have an assessment of $25k for the street!?!??!! Oakdale did ours including curbs for like $3.5k.

[dxmnkd316]

You're could be cashing in at the best possible time. Who knows what's in store? If you aren't getting a return of more than you're paying for taxes it just isn't worth it anymore.

[Deutsche Gopher Fan]

I’m actually taking hoveys advice and selling
y house this spring.

hate to give up a mortgage under 4, but with taxes and insurance I’m just done. Not gonna buy anything else for a while- depending on what I get from this house (fingers crossed) may just try to buy a condo or townhome for nearly all cash on dx side of town.

from 7k to 12k in taxes/insurance in 5 years. Nope! Edina only gonna get worse too- they’ve always made homeowners pay the entire street assessment when a road is redone- resulting in people paying 16-25k for their street. Now they’re phasing it to be more subsidized by property taxes so they’re gonna have to raise them for some time.

realtor coming tomorrow to tour house and figure out what needs to be done next few months to sell in spring. Spring could be busy if rates fall a bit (fingers crossed)

[dxmnkd316]

"10 lines of code per engineer per day" is about two orders of magnitude lower than I would have guessed. But it also makes me significantly happier and quite a bit more secure flying

It's like students/teacher. Probably better if that number stays under three digits :-D

edit: holy hell. That's very roughly a line of code per hour. It's just really funny to think about that and imagine someone two-finger pecking at a keyboard.

[LynahFan]

Also, for those following the Cybertruck drama, it's been pointed out that it utilizes a fly-by-wire steering system.

Which is great for a 32,000 pound F-18 going 800 mph, not so great for a 6,800 pound cheese grater driving 35 mph.

Because nothing ever goes wrong with Tesla software which could cause the steering to be unresponsive.

Well, if you’re going to have a self driving mode anyway, you’re already committed to steer by wire anyway. But the point remains that all of that code had better be developed and tested to the same rigor that aerospace uses for “flight critical” software, namely Do-178 Level A.

The typical aerospace throughput is 10 lines of code per sw engineer per day, so if you have a million lines of code, that’s 100,000 person days. If you want to get it done in some reasonable time, say 4 years of 250 days each (1000 days), then you have 100 developers working for 4 years straight. Figure $400k per year per developer (fully burdened), and you’re looking at $160M of labor, to say nothing of the hardware, labs, etc. needed to support all that work.

[dxmnkd316]

There is absolutely zero chance of it being able to open with an inch of ice. None.

[aparch]

Also worth noting:

...

Speaking of the door, Tesla claims that the doors will open even if coated in one inch of ice.

As someone who has struggled to open car doors coated in less ice, unless there's a heating coil in the edge of the door, this is going to be hilarious.