Some more notes on yesterday's 5-7 meeting:
MORE GRACE
She reiterated that residential s/b excluded from a cbd TIF. I find her statements interesting. I have asked on numerous occasions why residential is included, and all I have got back is 'infrastructure'. I see more deals or opportunites for developers. This is not a rumor, fear, misinformation or hearsay. Look no further than Olmsted COmmons as a development project that would take some of the residential areas encompassed in the current TIF boundaries.++ Doesn't Grace see what I see? On this, see Tim's circles on the inclusion of residential.+ I think the long and short of it is - you get more increment. W/O residential it might even be the case that it would not have sufficient benefit.
SCANLON
*last time out for the basso profondo with a scholarly demeaner and who usually attended and reported on the Riverside town activities. Beyond the avuncular style, he's the one who put on the record on 4-14 that they might need our home for parking for the VC (!). If I frequent and support the VC shop(s), if they ever come, I will then be enouraging my own displacement. I will continue to demand clarification on ED in the TIF. Even the EDC recommended the same. They should not look at me like I am some boring nut++++.
*on the TIF, he said he could not in his conscience vote on something that he would not see thru. Mr Scanlon, I like this line of reasoning. NO ONE on the board will see this TIF through. Mr Spatny also brought this point up in his remarks, I believe.
*he also said that the reason that the TIF seems not quite altogether is that it is an 'unfinished product' and is not ready to be put on the shelf - his words and metaphor.
COMMENT: I challenge Mr Scanlon to how much more the TIF we see now will be changed or refined. On one of the more important divisive features of the TIF, the enabling of Eminent Domain, there has been no change.
In my understanding of the CUSTOMARY activity of a TIF once the decision to turn on the TIF is made, only SLIGHT modifications are made. I can see this already. I was told by the Village manager that we do not even have enough money, now, to pay for my questions on Eminent Domain from KMA, the TIF consultant. I can see where this is heading. 'That is too expensive, or too burdensome to do'.
So I have some skepticism on how much more significant finishing will be done beyond what is given to the jrb.
QUICK COMMENT
Doesn't it rub you all the wrong way, or doesn't it seem odd that we have to pay $150 an hour to get any material thing done for such an village-intimate and long running thing as a TIF? In advance of the Smith notes, in a sense, or I should say, in a cents, we are being ruled by consultants. So they disrespect the villagers and pay respects to the consultant. Reminds of that guy in Czarist Russia who had the ear of the royal family, Rasputin.+++++
.
SMITH
He did bring up an interesting question about the pause. He wondered how much the pause cost the village. I assume he meant the cost of losing a year of increment, we lost on it. He also meant how much in extra re-do costs by the consultant did we incur, especially if we go forward with this re-do, and the TIF needs to be re-done if they are only a fraction serious about it (also see scanlon's comment above).
WHAT WE NEED
There was a comment by one of the trustees that said our cbd does not have what we need in Riverside. There was a comment by someone next to me in response, 'we have what we need'. Another 'public' asked have ever done thorough analyses on the dynamics of Riverside's cbd retail, potential and actual? He reminded us that TIFs DO NOT CREATE OPPORTUNITY.
TIF COST SIGNIFICANT
These comments from smith and scanlon taken together brings up to me the significant COST, or freight, there is to produce and carry this TIF. Tim on this forum has also pointed this out nicely.+ We have to spend, what, 8 million to get or 10 million?
This is the kind of stuff the Riverside 'mob' (smith's pejorative, at least in spirit) sees BETTER THAN what the trustees see. That is the real purpose of advisory referenda: to help GUIDE - INFORM the representatives, not GOVERN in some kind of robotic manner.
.
At the end of the day we have:
* villagers want to improve the CBD
* villagers do not want to do it with a TIF
So think of other alternatives, trustees, to do the cbd improvements. Please check your biases such as where you earn a living at the door.
.
.
There was a comment by one of the trustees ' where is the money going to come from to make these cbd imoprovements.?'
I scribbled on my paper and showed a fellow tif district member, 'the invisible hand'.+++
TALK TO THE INVISIBLE HAND
.
.
.
.
+
http://www.riversideinfo.org/forum/topic.php?id=217&page&replies=29#post-3437
++
http://host-files.com//show.php/853_olmstedcommons.pdf
+++
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invisible_hand
++++
that is another stress in the litany of '100 stresses': I have to be interesting, entertaining, and overall fun to listen to. NExt time I address them, I might start with a joke.
Doctor: What seems to be the trouble?
Patient: Doctor, I keep getting the feeling that nobody can hear what I say.
Doctor: What seems to be the trouble?
http://www.riversideinfo.org/forum/topic.php?id=303&page&replies=2
+++++
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grigori_Rasputin
Our Very Own Consultant (VC for short)
Posted Tuesday May 8, 2007 10:55
#