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Best Buy asks Richfield to lower tax assessment by millions
The company wants Richfield to let them out of a tax deal early, citing lower office space occupancy. The city agreed, but the school district needs to sign off.
RICHFIELD, Minn. — Best Buy asked the Richfield School Board to approve a deal already reached with the city that would end a special tax agreement a year early, allowing the company to reduce its property tax burden.
The agreement was reached more than 20 years ago when Best Buy sought to build its new headquarters in Richfield. As part of the deal, Best Buy agreed to pay taxes based on an assessed value of at least $118 million through 2025. The purpose was to make sure the city was reimbursed for bonds it took out to invest in the multi-million dollar headquarters and the infrastructure needed to support it.
Those bonds will be paid off by early 2024, and Best Buy says a lot has changed since 2000.
“Today’s workforce and workplaces have permanently changed,” Best Buy attorney Tracy Smith told the Richfield School Board. “Our Richfield campus today is half-vacant.”
The company has teams who work fully remote, while others work a hybrid schedule — coming to the Richfield headquarters just three days per week.
Meanwhile, Hennepin County said the assessed value of the property would be $81.5 million, significantly less than the agreed to minimum of $118 million.
Best Buy has asked to pay taxes on that lower amount, starting next year.
“Best Buy wants to pay property tax on its office space at fair market value, just the same as other Richfield residents, and importantly, Best Buy’s competitors,” Smith said.
The company argues that a lower property tax will allow them to rent out office space to other employers at a more competitive rate, bringing more jobs and more stability to Richfield.
Meanwhile, the company pledges the deal will be structured in a way that won’t harm other taxpayers.
“There are no losers to this situation and solution. The risk to the district and its taxpayers has been fully addressed,” Smith told board members at their Dec. 4 work session.
But some board members had concerns with the shortened timeline they were given in which to weigh in, saying they weren’t brought into the conversation until after agreements had been made with the city. They want assurances students and taxpayers won’t feel the impact of terminating the tax deal early.
“There are no losers,” said board member Crystal Brakke. “We don’t want to be the sole exception to that.”
School District Superintendent Steven Unowski said he hoped to reach an agreement, but would only sign off if he believed taxpayers were protected.
He estimates ending the agreement early would shift $100,000 from Best Buy’s taxes to other taxpayers. Plus, he said the process has created significant extra work for school district staff.
He wants Best Buy to commit to a $150,000 payment to Richfield Schools to cover the burden.
Responding to questions from KARE 11 Unowski said, “We must ensure school funding is not reduced in any way and that our taxpayers are not impacted by this. We have discussed this with representatives from Best Buy and we are working toward an agreement based on these expectations.”
At the meeting Smith, from Best Buy, seemed inclined to agree.
If they come to a formal agreement, the school board will vote at its Dec. 18 meeting.
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The crash happened when a Suburban pulling a trailer failed to stop at a stop sign, Minnesota State Patrol said.
WAUKENABO, Minn. — Two people from Minnetonka died in a crash Friday in Aitkin County while others, including children, were hurt.
According to Minnesota State Patrol, it happened at the intersection of Highway 169 and Grove Street/County Road 3 in Waukenabo Township at approximately 5:15 p.m.
A Suburban pulling a trailer was driving east on County Road 3 but did not stop at the stop sign at Highway 169, authorities said. The vehicle was struck by a northbound GMC Yukon. Two other vehicles were struck in the crash, but the people in those two cars were not injured.
In the Suburban, the driver sustained life-threatening injuries, according to State Patrol. Elizabeth Jane Baldwin, 61, of Minnetonka, and Marlo Dean Baldwin, 92, of Minnetonka, both died. Officials said the driver of the vehicle, a 61-year-old from Minnetonka, has life-threatening injuries.
There were six people in the Yukon when the crash occurred. The 44-year-old driver, as well as passengers ages 18, 14, and 11, sustained what officials described as life-threatening injuries. The other two passengers have non-life-threatening injuries.
Alcohol is not believed to be a factor in the crash, but officials said Elizabeth Jane Baldwin had not been wearing a seatbelt.
Among those at the start line this year will be Alex Vigil.
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Pixar’s second installment of the movie features characters we’ve already met — Joy, Sadness and Anger — and gives them a new roommate named Anxiety.
MINNEAPOLIS — Pixar’s “Inside Out 2” universe plays out inside the mind of the movie’s adolescent protagonist, Riley.
She plays a kid from Minnesota whose family uproots her life by moving to San Francisco. But did you know that what plays out in Riley’s mind actually comes from the mind of a real-life Minnesotan?
“You are one of us!” said Breaking the News anchor Jana Shortal.
“Yes, I am!” said Burnsville native and the movie’s creator and director, Kelsey Mann.
Mann was chosen for the role by ANOTHER Minnesotan — Pete Docter, the man behind the original movie, “Inside Out.”
“I don’t know if Pete asked me to do this movie because I was from Minnesota and he was from Minnesota … I just think it worked out that way,” Mann said.
How two guys from the south metro made a pair of Pixar movies that would change the game is a hell of a story that began with Docter in 2015.
“He [Docter] was just trying to tell a fun story — an emotional, fun story — and didn’t realize how much it would help give kids a vocabulary to talk about things they were feeling because they are feeling those emotions, but they’re really hard to talk about,” Mann said.
Some parents, counselors and teachers might even tell you it did more good for kids than just entertain them. It unlocked their emotions and begged for what Mann set out to create at the beginning of 2020.
“That part was fun, particularly fun,” he said. “I think the daunting part was following up a film that everyone really loved.”
But Mann knew what he wanted to do with the movie’s follow-up, “Inside Out 2.”
“Diving into Riley’s adolescence … that was just fun,” he said.
This time around, Riley is 13, hitting puberty and facing all of what, and who, comes with it. The franchise’s second installment features characters we’ve already met — Joy, Sadness and Anger — and gives them a new roommate named Anxiety.
“I think that’s what’s fun about the ‘Inside Out’ world: You can take something we all know and give it a face,” Mann said. “We can give anxiety a name and a face.”
The film follows Riley’s emotions fighting it out for control of her life. Joy wants Riley to stay young and hold on only to joy, while anxiety is hell-bent on taking over Riley over at the age of 13 because as a lot of us know, that’s when anxiety often moves in.
“I always pitched it as a takeover movie, like an emotional takeover,” Mann said. “Anxiety can kind of feel like that; it can take over and kind of shove your other emotions to the side and repress them.”
For a kids’ movie, it’s hard to watch this animation play out, even when an adult has the keys to decide.
“I’m making a movie about anxiety and I still have to remind myself to have my anxiety take a seat,” Mann said.
All of our individual anxieties have a place in this world.
“The whole movie honestly is about acceptance. Both acceptance of anxiety being there and also of your own flaws,” said Mann.
Even for our kids, we have to remember that this is life.
Anxiety will come for them; it does for us all.
The “Inside Out” world just shows them it’s so.
