Riverside Info Topic: TIF, Round II

Riverside Info Topic: TIF, Round II http://www.riversideinfo.org/forum/ Discussion Forum for Riverside Illinois en Fri, 10 Feb 2012 07:39:33 +0000 Catherine on "TIF, Round II" http://www.riversideinfo.org/forum/topic/tif-round-ii#post-5763 Sun, 14 Oct 2007 14:45:59 +0000 Catherine 5763@http://www.riversideinfo.org/forum/ <a href="http://www.chicagosuburbannews.com/riverside/homepage/x2130783957" rel="nofollow">http://www.chicagosuburbannews.com/riverside/homepage/x2130783957</a> "Committee Chairman Mike Sedivy said there aren't a lot of economic tools the village qualifies for other than a tax increment finance district. “Everyone that's looked at our situation has agreed a TIF is the most valuable tool,— Sedivy said. “It might work on Harlem, might work on Ogden, might work downtown but it can't look like the one before.— Hm, well I guess if we had one that did not glom onto peoples' homes, tax the school system and infrastructure, make huge ugly buildings, and was obviously legal, that would look different. I guess "everyone" doesn't include the voters. I certainly hope the Life has not misquoted Mike Sedivy because, of course, the village's legal qualification for a TIF was just one of the major things that were at issue last time. Establishing this eligibility is ultimately a job for the courts, not "everyone" who thinks it would be nice. TIFs as we know are very nice because the village gets ALL the property tax revenue in the zone. Little bitty problem: you have to actually qualify for one. Kind of hard to jimmy up if someone calls you on it. Cook County would do well to track this a little more closely: if they weren't giving up so much money to TIFs maybe they would not have to look at the highest sales tax in the country. Also very strange to suggest this when RBHS is running a deficit and may need more money, and the primary schools are packed. Guess they're not "everyone" either. This article is pretty good. Mike Gorman and Katy Rush are quoted. It hilariously mentions twice that the consultant was paid 10,000 to "write" the report. I think most anyone on that committee could have written that report for free. Must be some other reason they were there, ya think?