Seems strange to me that the trustees spent about $0.50/household to send out a pro-TIF info flyer, when they are at this very minute discussing it for the very first time. How did they know they were for the TIF last week?
Perhaps it is because enacting a TIF is part of the Village Managers job description for the year 2007?
Is there anywhere (such as the internet) one can find the packet of materials that the trustees are reviewing?
Also, can someone give a summary of what went on the 4-14 meeting?
I gave the materials to MDS. There was a "matrix" with lists of things for them to discuss - but it was not all encompassing. I caught one area they omitted and brought it to their attentionn and they removed it - finally - from the TIF District. They were establishing a consensus on every point - like leaving West St. in or out - they took it out - and debated 56&60 Pine for a long time - they left it in. Etc. Even though the General wasn't there his vote was counted - I guess he got to see this stuff earlier and left his vote with KRush. I went to pick up trash atthe River at noon because I thought that would be more productive.
What was said at the meeting today about the south side of burlington
Buildings and the north longcommon building?
Was this special meeting televised? I went there a bit late, about 9:45, and saw there was nothing going on in room 4 and the auditorium, so I thought I missed it, an uncharacteristically short meeting. Later I saw from the internet posting that it was in another room.
Since it was a special meeting, it would have been nice to put a sign saying that it was in room whatever it was in.
Did they discuss whether they should do a TIF or not at this point in the process?
On a related note, did they discuss the other major point that has been hammered again and again in the last several months, the need for a proper visioning and planning process to happen first before doing financing?
So they discussed 56 Pine separately and left it in. Was it unanimious? IF not, who voted for or against it to be included in the TIF, and what was the reasoning?
i had to leave at 9:50. by then there had been zilch on planning. others were there past me. i also wonder if planning was ever mentioned.
I have recvd off line info from others who had attended this 4-14 special Trustee meeting on the single most important thing in this Village's life, the TIF.
EMINENT DOMAIN - NO CONTROLS;
One thing that I was told was that amending the TIF document in any way to control Eminent Domain with TIF funds was not even mentioned as a possibility. The proscription of Eminent Domain using TIF dollars was not going to be 'baked into' the TIF document by way of Certification, nor by a memorializing (I think this is the term) - which was the EDC recommendation.
COMMUNITY INPUT IGNORED
This is further evidence that they ignored the last 5.5 months of community information exchange, including heeding the recommendations of the Village body that recommended the TIF, the EDC. This is bad enough as far as correct democratic process or method goes, but WITH THIS TIF, they are harming the lives, and properties, literally, of tax paying families - the ones whose properties have been jailed in the TIF.
HARM
The properties are stigmatized and ghetto-ized and the free market is no longer applicable in their transacations. There is a huge perceptual or subjective element to the value of Real Estate. As in stocks, prices plunge when there is 'uncertainty'. With this TIF there is much uncertainty. The only people to buy would be bottom feeding scavenging carp like developers (no disrespect to bottom feeding carp), or Village governements who rely on artificially low and unfair market assessments.+
Someone told me, 'With this TIF, Now the trustees are dangerous'.
Please do not be complicit in this misadventure. Vote NO to the TIF on April 17. Please do your part to maintain the best of what Riverside is.
When it was mentioned that they might do a Trustee resolution to prohibit such exercise, it was pointed out, properly, that this would be meaningless since the resolution could be overturned as simply as issuing another resolution.
TIF = EMINENT DOMAIN; NOT FEAR MONGERING
Another item that was noted at the meeting, INCREDIBLY, during the same conversation in which they said that they would do nothing to limit the exercise of eminent domain, the Trustees had the gall to charge the TIF opposition side of fear mongering of the Eminent Domain issue.
Why not write it into the TIF document, then?
We are all grown up here. Some of us are even lawyers. IF YOU DON'T GET IT IN WRITING, THERE IS NO PROTECTION FROM THE BAD BEHAVIOR. Part of the POWER OF A TIF is the increase in the ability to exercise coercive property acquisition (Eminent Domain) of the government over private property.
However, there are ways to to impede, or make better, make more humane, the process of Eminent Domain in a TIF district without abrogating the Village basic right to do Eminent domain. Certification is one such method.
Please vote NO to the (TIF) referenda tomorrow.
Vote NO if you do not want to live in a town with heightened, greased powers of eminent domain, or nasty, coercive methods that compromise the freedoms of private property owners.
A TIF will grease or heighten these coercive powers.
I wish I could put this in 100 point fonts and send this to everyone in town.
I have walked the town about 5-6 times, at least, with flyers. I see the homes and the people and how much pride of ownership it so obviously present. I KNOW, I FEEL, from what I see and from what I have heard in speaking with the people, that these people have a fierce sense of freedom and sympathy for the right of private property owners. In RIverside, we have a 'nest of them', in fact.
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NOT VIDEO TAPED; NOT RIGHT; EVEN IF LEGAL, BAD FAITH
It was not taped for TV broadcast. I am not sure if there were verbatim transcipts taken.
That does not sound right to me. I am not sure if there are any laws that dictate that such discussions should be video taped. Does anyone know what the rules are for the video taping and the performing of verbatim transcripts in Illinois municipal governmental meetings? Even if there are no laws, it would be the right thing to tape it so that people who may not have been able to make it, or who went to the wrong room, can get better information on this most important issue.
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VOTE NO TO THE REFERUNDA - THERE ARE OTHER LESS COSTLY METHODS TO IMPROVE OUR CBD
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details details details
Also in the 4-14 session a stmt was made by a trustee that properties in a tif district go up, maybe even by 25 pct.
Some comments on alleged increase to TIF properties:
1) When they say there was an increase of 25 pct, what is the baseline from which they are using to assess the increase? If they used the unfair market appraisal that they (and any municipality) gave me, then a 25 pct increase would occur even if there were no tif. and that 25 pct would still be larcenous.
2) Also, a TIF district is not a TIF district. We can see the wild array of eligibility criteria to be a tif district (15 criteria, I believe). The TIF law was originally designed to help truly dead areas - completely shuttered vacant bad things etc. A 25 pct increase THERE would be reasonable to expect.
Riverside's cbd is not that way, we all know.
3) how many of the TIf districts were all commercial, or composites like Riverside's? Maybe the commercial portion goes up at the expense of the residential portion. I wonder, therefore, whether how sfd's fare in TIFs
If you were looking for a house, dear Forum reader, would YOU buy one in a TIF district w/ its uncertain status? This brings up Trustee Grace's distinction between commercial and rez properties in THIS tif district (she wanted residential out, thankyou, Ms Grace). Maybe the 25 pct incr was with TD's w/ more commercial than residential.
Then, of course, there is that special subset of TIF properties that are in the Housing Impact Section - deigned to be taken by the municipality. THAT kind of TIF property is the one I am speaking of right now, of course.
That is an odd ball. That tractor beam that the village has on such a property I would think would severly affect the value of the property. Who would buy it when they know the town wants it? None, for all practical purposes. I guess the only ones who might buy it would be lawyer developer types, savvy in Eminent Domain. Then again, they would have the property owner over a barrrel since there would not be any other competition to vett the offer.
dear all,
there is no plan, there are no numbers and there has been no acknowledgement of the concerns over village administration of such a program. that they met three days before the referenda to consider how they will proceed shows no interest in the expression of the voters. (ironically, they put two matters on tomorrow's ballot themselves.) for them the last four-and-a-half months have been merely a holding pattern. luckily, ccr used it for organizing and campaigning, so at least a new constituency has emerged.
after no plan, and no numbers and no answers and no interest, it is time for all of us to vote "No."
best,
chris robling
The fact is that this entire process has been a charade, we know it, and they know we know it, and they don't care. The Saturday session showed how unfamiliar some of them are with the details of even Ms. Rush's direction finding. All that has happened is that she has made a list of things she wants to settle, leaving out others - thank goodness we caught her in one and got a piece of river bank real estate and a triangle omitted. I twice heard them talk about a "western" track crossing that would lead from parking - meaning the structure they want to build where Mik's House is - to the "Government District". Mark my words, they will be back with a $2 - 2.5 million tunnel west of the barber shop within a year or two. They will want to line Pine and Forest with 3-4 story condos, which is the reason for the larger water line and the mention of rezoning Forest Avenue and including it in the TIF, and they now see moving the commuter parking east of Longcommon along both sids of the tracks to a parking structure on Pine as the way to get, at a cost equal to what they charged, the parking back that they owe the Village Center. If this TIF comes into being and is upheld that will be the focus, along with a major rebuilding effort on Burlington. Get out and say no to the Condoization of Riverside. Every vote counts.
"A member from the community, representing the public, serves on the Joint Review Board along with representatives of the major taxing bodies overlapping the TIF."
Who is the member from the community, representing the public?
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