There’s one issue on the minds of voters in Baytown Township this fall: incorporation.

Township residents on Nov. 5 will vote on whether to recommend that the township board pass a resolution to become a city. The town board, concerned about the threat of annexation from neighboring cities, decided earlier this year to put the matter to the residents in the form of an advisory referendum.

A “yes” vote means the voter supports Baytown’s becoming a city.

Three seats on the town board are also up for election, and, not surprisingly, incorporation is a driving factor in those contested races.

Town board supervisors George Dierberger (Seat 2) and John Hall (Seat 5) support incorporation. So does Jon Wood, a township resident who is running for Seat 1; Supervisor Rick Weyrauch, who currently holds the seat, decided not to run for re-election.A slate of residents who want Baytown to remain a township also are on the ballot: Nicole Dahl, who is running for Seat 1; Christopher “CJ” Randazzo, who is running for Seat 2, and Paul Johnson, who is running for Seat 5.

The result of the advisory referendum is non-binding, but Dierberger, who has been spearheading the push for incorporation, said he believes that the town board would move forward with the measure if 60% of the voters are in favor. “As far as I’m concerned, that’s a mandate,” he said. “We would move forward with 60.”

A survey of township residents about incorporation showed that 72% of 450 respondents would be in favor of Baytown moving from a township to a city if the township could maintain its “rural environment.”

An incorporation proceeding can be initiated by a town-board resolution or by a petition signed by 100 or more property owners. The petition/resolution must contain the proposed name of the city, the names of all parties entitled to notice, if any, the reason for incorporation and a map showing the proposed boundaries to be incorporated.

The typical incorporation process takes about six to nine months, Dierberger said.

“It’s in our best interest to become a city,” he said. “It’s the only way to protect ourselves from the big dollars that builders are throwing at people.”

Dierberger, an associate professor of business administration and director of Augsburg University’s MBA program, said he started researching the issue in May 2023 after becoming concerned about Baytown Township being vulnerable to annexation by a neighboring city. The township, which has a population of 2,200, borders Oak Park Heights, Lake Elmo, Bayport and West Lakeland Township.

Other townships, particularly in the metro area, have opted to incorporate to protect their rural character. Grant Township, for example, was reorganized as the City of Grant in 1996; New Scandia Township became the city of Scandia in 2007; and Empire Township, in Dakota County, became a city in 2023.

‘Protecting the tax base’

According to information posted on the township’s website, the cost of becoming a city — based on data collected from four other townships that transitioned to becoming a city — could range from $60,000 to $100,000 with roughly 60% of that in legal fees. “The balance would be administration costs and holding an election for a mayor and city council,” the website states. “After the first year, the budget will be closer to the normal budget.”

If Baytown becomes a city, it would not need to hire a full-time police officer — the Washington County Sheriff’s Office provides those services — nor would it need to hire a full-time city manager, Dierberger said.

“The only way you increase taxes in Baytown is if you hire full-time employees,” he said. “Half of our budget goes to roads. We need to protect homeowners from annexation and the resulting higher taxes that will come with not controlling your own budget.”

According to a financial analysis prepared for the township by Dierberger’s MBA students at Augsburg, all of the cities that border Baytown Township have higher tax costs. The owner of a $400,000 house in Oak Park Heights, for example, pays about $4,400 in annual taxes; the owner of a house of the same value in the township pays only about $2,900, according to the analysis.

The push for incorporation is all about “protecting Baytown and protecting the tax base here and keeping it low,” Wood, the Seat 1 candidate, said.

“We’re in a no-win situation here,” Wood said. “If we stay a township, we’re just going to bleed properties to the adjacent cities. On the other hand, if we become a city, sure, there might be some small cost, but it comes down to the control of the border. We all want low taxes, but in order to maintain our tax base, we have to retain our property. We don’t want to necessarily become a city, but it’s our last option.

“If we get annexed by one of the adjacent cities, Oak Park Heights, Bayport or Lake Elmo, our taxes are going to go up 30 to 35 percent overnight. That’s what we’re trying to prevent. We don’t necessarily want to become a city, but it’s our last option at this point.”

‘Truly a threat?’

Candidates Dahl, Johnson and Randazzo are pushing for the township to remain a township. They recently sent out two eight-page fliers to residents urging voters to vote “no” on the referendum; another flier is slated to go out this week, Dahl said.

Baytown’s situation regarding its borders are very different from Grant and other townships that became cities, Dahl said.

“It’s important to have a factual understanding of what the risk is for annexation,” Dahl said. “Is there truly a threat to Baytown that justifies becoming a city? The answer is no. It’s very important to understand our boundaries. When you look at other townships that have changed to a city, such as Grant, there are large tracts of undeveloped land along the borders which we do not have.”

Under the state’s annexation statutes, property owners can request to be annexed to a neighboring entity if that entity better meets their needs. That’s the case with a recent case involving Baytown residents Bradley and Janet Anderson, the owners of a horse farm who are winding down their equine venture and want their 26 acres of land near Barker’s Alps Park in Bayport to be annexed by the city in order to be developed, she said.

The township has a 2 ½-acre minimum lot-size requirement; the surrounding cities allow five housing units per acre. “The township has that minimum-lot size requirement to protect against annexation,” Dahl said. “We want to keep it rural residential.”

If the Anderson land were annexed by Bayport, a developer could put at least 40 housing units on the land. Under township-zoning regulations, “that number would be much less,” Dahl said.

“We can’t find from a legal perspective, how a city strategy would better protect us in the 2 1/2-acre range when you look at these risk areas,” Dahl said. “Our biggest risk in Baytown, when you look at our annexation history, has been property-owner-requested annexation, like the Jan Anderson property, which is the only one we can cite in the last 20 some years. To be clear, it’s the property owner’s right to request annexation. It’s not like we’re constantly under attack. That’s the only one that’s happened. But it’s property-owner driven, and us becoming a city doesn’t stop that. It might make you go through a couple more steps, but it’s not going to stop it.”

Dahl said she believes that taxes would go up if the township becomes a city. “How can you confirm taxes will not go up under a city strategy? The answer is you can’t,” she said, adding that cities generally have a 25%-plus higher tax rate than townships. “When we think about what the residents are asking for, we don’t think that there is a proper trade-off for the higher risk of taxes.”

Questions remain

Many residents she has met while campaigning say they did not know about the upcoming referendum, Dahl said. “They had no idea this topic was even being discussed or on the ballot,” she said. “This raises a different concern about transparency and appropriate communication from the board. Because this has potential tax implications, it’s super important that we ensure that multiple attempts have been made to communicate with the community. When we look at how the current board has chosen to disseminate information, it is disappointing.”

The township board mailed a postcard about the incorporation survey to residents in January, but “many community members are saying they didn’t receive,” Dahl said. “It’s a question of why aren’t you actively trying to pull people in?”

Only a third of the township’s residents responded, and the card included “incorrect” information stating that if Baytown becomes a city, adjacent municipalities would not be allowed to annex part or all of Baytown, according to Baytown Neighbors. The group asked the town board to send a factually correct document to all residents; the town board opted to post the change on the township’s website, the flier states.

Johnson told viewers of the Baytown Township Supervisor 2024 Candidate Forum sponsored by the League of Women Voters of White Bear Lake Area earlier this month that he also supports staying a township.

“I don’t think it’s been explained to the residents of the township well enough — what the tax implications are to becoming a city,” he said. “I personally have not seen any numbers about the cost to initiate the city process and what it’s going to take to maintain that. We don’t know what every resident is going to see as far as an increase in their taxes. We’ve seen county levy increases, and it’s concerning to a lot of residents. We want to make sure we’re ready for any kind of big step that this may take.”

Randazzo, who serves on the township’s planning commission, said he has not seen any “factual information telling us that becoming a city is a better option.”

“I am pro-township,” he said. “One of the things you’ll be hearing is that being a city protects us and it doesn’t — not from the properties that are property-owner driven. Any property owner who is on the border, whether we’re a city or township, can choose to leave. We can’t stop them. The owners can leave whenever they want. And for the most part, Baytown has done a great job. Our board has done a great job of cutting up our borders, so that they can’t be annexed. We have a lot of neighborhoods, dense communities around.”

Dahl and the others said they would support the results of the referendum if elected.

“Once a vote is made, then you have to play team,” Dahl said. “You have to go back to: This is what we’re here to accomplish. This is a decision we’ve made. Majority rules. That’s how our democracy works, and then you just need to get on board. For me, I can do that. I’m passionate about what I believe, and I will state my case, but once a decision is made, we move forward.”

Hall did not return a phone call or email seeking comment. In an interview with the Pioneer Press in January, he talked about supporting the push for incorporation.

“Becoming a city doesn’t necessarily stop 100 percent (the threat) of annexation, but it does give Baytown the opportunity to stay Baytown,” Hall said. “That is the whole premise of this push for incorporation — that we can continue with our way of life in Baytown Township or the city of Baytown, whatever it turns out to be. We’re still a community that looks out for our neighbor.”