Category Archives: Development

According to the city;

The City has effectively and reasonably used TIF as a development incentive for blighted areas within the core of our community.

Tax Increment Financing assists local governments in attracting private development and new businesses into blighted areas.

As you can see, the city’s policy is to use TIF’s for blighted areas. So what is blighted about the current TIF request downtown? A developer is looking to build apartments just North of Sunshine grocery store downtown. Currently the Tyler building and parking exist at this location. As far as I can tell, the Tyler building is still useable and NOT blighted. Besides the expense of tearing down a building, there really is NO blight involved. So what is the TIF applicant asking for? Are they applying for the TIF for demolition purposes? That isn’t a definition of blight in my opinion;

An area of a city, often a large metropolitan city, in which most buildings are abandoned or in severe disrepair. See also brownfield site, greenfield site.

The townhouses being built across the street actually had to demolish (blighted) homes before building, and it was done without the use of a TIF. So what is the difference? There really isn’t one. I understand that property downtown IS more expensive than in other areas of town, but that also relates into a ‘better investment’ return for the developer once a project is completed. Unless the planning commission and city council can find some kind of ‘blight’ in the Tyler Building area, I recommend they deny the TIF request.

I have also heard there are rumblings of another TIF request for a new retail/office/residential mixed use building near the Washington Pavilion. The rumored proposed area is ALSO not blighted.

The mayor often talks about letting FREE enterprise do what they want to without a lot of government intervention. I would agree, and that is the exact reason why the city should get out of the business of subsidizing free enterprise with property tax rebates and let them sink or swim on their own.

Okay, now that I have your attention, I don’t think he is, but he does think highly of himself.

Great Hair.

He came to speak at Democratic Forum today, and I did enjoy his opening joke (sorry no audio or visual, so I scratched this down from memory). After explaining what the Planning Department does, Jeff says this;

“I’m not a member of the city council, because I actually do something.”

He certainly believes that the Planning Department has a lot of power, and they do, if they don’t have checks and balances, and maybe that is what his joke was about, his department is unchecked by the city’s legislative branch.

So I decided to question Jeff about this, I mentioned to him at the mayor’s last Shut up and Listen session that the mayor said there was ‘nothing’ the city could do to limit zoning of car lots because he believes in free enterprise, so I said to Jeff,

“Just because the planning department and planning commission recommend something and vote for it doesn’t mean the city council has to approve it?”

He of course talked about how the planning department and commission must follow zoning laws, etc, and I nodded in agreement, he eluded that if the city council ‘doesn’t like someone’ they can vote against them or follow recommendations. (which is funny, because the department and commission have voted against several entities that they didn’t care for politically that were well within their legal rights)

So I followed up and said, “But the council has the power as elected officials to vote against a re-zone?” and Jeff said, “Yes.”

I found the exchange interesting, because while I knew the answer, I was surprised, first off, that Jeff answered it honestly. But what took me back more is that Jeff doesn’t understand the importance of elected officials versus appointed public employees. Our city council is our check against the mayor’s administration and public employees. And while everything is well and good on paper at city hall, the public may not want a freaking disgusting car lot fly by night operation next to them, and that is the power of our city’s legislative branch to say NO, and they have that power, and they should exercise it, because as Jeff says, they need something to do.