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4/10/2007 10:00:00 PM Email this article —ยข Print this article
Riverside village board eyes May vote on TIF plan
Trustees to hold 2 more workshops this month
By BOB UPHUES
Opting to wait until after the April elections before acting, the Riverside village board last week decided to wait until May 7 to vote on whether to accept the TIF Redevelopment Plan, which was completed last fall.
The TIF Redevelopment plan is the official document that designates the TIF area, which in the current plan includes downtown Riverside and surrounding areas, including Swan Pond. On May 7, the board could vote to accept the document as is, vote to reconfigure the TIF boundaries, vote to again delay action or vote the TIF idea down all together. If the board votes to expand the TIF boundaries, it would force the village to start the entire process over from scratch.
Should the board vote to accept the TIF Redevelopment Plan, the board would be required to convene a Joint Review Board and hold a public hearing prior to any final vote to create the TIF in Riverside. According to Village Manager Kathleen Rush, the soonest the board could hold that final vote after accepting the TIF Redevelopment Plan is 45 days. The process could also take much longer, she added.
But before voting on the TIF Redevelopment Plan on May 7, village trustees will meet twice to examine information compiled at eight village workshops held earlier this year and the results of three advisory referendum questions on the April 17 ballot, one of which asks if Riverside should create a TIF.
The first of the two board workshops, which are public meetings, will be held on Saturday, April 14 at 9 a.m. in Room 4 of the Riverside Township Hall, 27 Riverside Road. The second will be held Monday, April 23 at 6:30 p.m. at a location to be determined.
"My main concern is that we have taken the time to listen to a lot of input," said Village President Harold J. Wiaduck Jr. "I think we need to talk that out."
While most of the village trustees agreed with that assessment, Trustee Thomas Shields argued that the board ought to move forward with the vote on the TIF Redevelopment Plan as quickly as possible. At the village's Committee of the Whole meeting last week, Shields said he favored a vote on the plan on April 16, the day before the election.
Shields, a staunch supporter of the village's TIF proposal, said that despite the information presented at the eight workshops and the looming referendum on the TIF, he saw no reason to delay a vote on the proposed plan.
"It seems to me that the referendum questions aren't relevant to what this board needs to do," Shields said.
"I supported receiving information from citizens as much as we could," he said. "Since that time, I've attended the workshops and I haven't heard anything that would cause us not to go forward with this plan."
Shields added that moving forward with the plan would mean a session with the Joint Review Board, which includes representative from every other taxing body in Riverside, including the schools, library, the Riverside Township and Cook County.
"We'll have meetings with the other taxing bodies to see if there's any reason not to go forward with the plan," Shields said. "To continue to delay this first step [from happening], I don't see any reason."
Riverside resident Donald Spatny, a vocal opponent of the TIF effort, expressed amazement at Shields' contention that the referendum question about the TIF wasn't pertinent.
"We knew the results of the [village workshops] within days; they ran three-to-one against the TIF," Spatny said. "You're going to maybe discover that again. To talk about ignoring the referendum is really strange."
Another resident, Joanne Keefe, asked trustees not only to consider the referendum results, but to "let them be uppermost in your minds and hearts."
"I think the results of the referendum should be meaningful and be of great weight," Keefe said.
Trustee Cindy Gustafson, who voted a year ago against starting the TIF process, argued that the board needed to proceed only after carefully considering information gleaned from the village workshops.
"To me there's a lot more mystery," she said. "I'd like to have at least one workshop."
The view was also echoed by trustees John Scully and Candice Grace, who disagreed with Shields that the advisory referendum on the TIF was irrelevant.
"A citizens' group put this on the ballot, and I'd like to know what other citizens think," Scully said.
Trustee Kevin Smith also argued for the need to wait on moving ahead until the referendum results were known.
"The outcome of the referendums will be relevant," he said. "They are policy issues that voters can have a direct say on."
After deciding to have two board workshops to further consider the TIF question, the board also settled on the May 7 date for taking the vote on whether to move ahead with the TIF Redevelopment Plan. While the April 17 election will already have been held, the new board-which will include two new trustees-won't be sworn in until May 21.