The recent WSJ article about the Board of Estimates meeting on TIF made me ask some questions. I couldn’t stay for meeting to ask these questions, but the questions that I have, plus those that others have asked me since then, made me wonder what we’re doing . . .
My biggest and first question was, why wasn’t the Gorman project mentioned in the WSJ article or the Board of Estimates agenda? (The WSJ reporter tells me it was cuz he worked off the BOE agenda, which makes sense.) After all, the Gorman project was:
a) one of the projects mentioned in the 2005 budget for the $5M we set aside
b) it actually is in an established TIF district
c) the application has been pending for about a year
d) the request has been reduced from about $8M for the entire project to $3.9M
e) we had to rush to get the TIF district established for this project and
f) it is the generator for the TIF district.
I’ve been told that this application is “at the end of the line”. Why? I don’t know. Who decides where you are in the line? What factors are used to consider where you are in the line? When you’re at the end of the line, how long do you have to wait to get staff’s attention?
The following questions are questions people have asked me . . .
1. How is the 700 block of University Avenue blighted? Seriously, good question. When you think of the University area, is that where you think of blight? Is this where we should be encouraging development or can it happen on its own?
2. What TIF district is the 700 block of University Avenue in? (Ok, the answer is none. The State St. TID has to be expanded to include this property.)
3. What TIF district is the Union Corners project in? (Ok, the answer is none. We still have to create a TIF district for that project.)
4. Why are we talking about TIF projects for 2007 and 2008 when we haven’t dealt with 2006 projects? We’ve been told we can’t make decisions for future councils, so we can’t decide what we will budget in 2007 and 2008 yet.
5. How did they resolve that little issue with the unwilling property sellers for the Todd Drive project?
Why are all of these projects, which have multiple unresolved issues, being talked about while the Gorman project is “at the end of the line”?
Oh, and don’t forget about the issue I raised a while ago. Why don’t we look at the return on our investment when we spend our TIF dollars?
I seriously wonder, should we just close the East Washington TIF district if there is no interest in making it a priority?
