Business owners in Clearwater will begin paying for a business license each year.

 

Last week, the city council approved an amendment to the city’s fee schedule adding a $30 fee for an annual business license.

 

The city currently has a business license ordinance, but there is no fee attached to the license.

 

Administrator Kevin Kress said the fee will cover the city’s cost.           

 

“It takes (staff) at least an hour to develop a license and work through all the items,” he said.    “For a long time it was zero. We did the licenses for nothing. From my side I wasn’t happy with that because I  noticed we were spending quite a bit of time.”

 

The city stopped requiring businesses to apply for a license, even thought the ordinance was still in place. 

 

“So we’ve had a business license ordinance and we never repealed it,” said Councilman Richard Petty. “We just didn’t make people apply for them?”

 

Kress said yes.

 

“There were previous motions (by the council) not to send out business licenses,” he said.

 

Kress said there are benefits to having a license ordinance.

 

“We knows who’s operating and what they’re operating within the city limits,” he said. “And it allows us to cross reference for sales tax.”

 

Last week’s vote only added a fee for the license. It did not change the license ordinance.

 

“The actual business license is still on the books. But the fee is done separately through the fee schedule,” said Kress.

 

Councilman Wayne Kruchten asked whether the city knows about all the businesses in town.

 

“We’ll have to send them out to whoever pays the water bill currently,” said Kress. “That’s part of the  problem with a business license because a lot of the owners don’t live in city limits. It will take us awhile to get the correct person, and it’s even harder now because we didn’t have business licenses for several years.”

 

The fee goes into effect immediately.

 

 

The council approved a plan by Kress to purchase Surface Pro laptop tablets for a cost not to exceed $15,000. Kress said the plan is to purchase a tablet for each of the council members to use at meetings, another for himself and one each for public works and the fire department.

 

He said the tablets will help with efficiency and enable staff and the council to follow agenda, keep daily logs and look up information.

 

 

In other action the council:

 

* Approved the transfer of $48,424.71 from the debt service fund to the general fund;

 

* Adopted a lien for unpaid charges on 23 parcels;

 

* Appointed Dan Stellmach to the Clearwater Park Commission;

 

* Approved a payment of $665 to Clearwater Twp. to cover legal costs related to the Orderly Annexation Agreement;

 

* Agreed to develop a citywide survey of six to 10 questions to get citizens’ opinion on a number of different issues.