civil's blog

Last evening, April 6, the council had the first reading of the ordinance dividing the $12M in funds from the Centerpoint TIF. At the end of the meeting Elisa made an excellent  presentation questioning the split while while the council stared off into space. After the presentation, Gragg made some comments about the bus service, referring to an earlier presentation by Erin, and the City Manager and Attorney offered up their usual smoke screen about the TIF split.

The City Council of Independence will, at its Monday night meeting, approve the first reading of an ordinance authorizing a development agreement with Edwards Management Group, LLC and the Independence School District. This agreement will be the culmination of a classic example of the old saw “ My mind’s made up, don’t confuse me with the facts”.
 

Evidently there was no council meeting on March 30. I suppose that means there will be one on April 6. I guess this will be a regularly scheduled meeting, although it should be a study session to give the council members more opportunity to study the HCA TIF fund allocation. I personally have more questions about this than I have answers.
 

Every state statute that authorizes levying of a sales tax without a vote of the people, such as those used to finance the Arena and the construction of 39th Street, requires that there be a public hearing prior to action by the city council. Public hearings are also required of groups such as the Tax Increment Finance Committee and public attendance and input is welcome at Planning Commission meetings. The requirement is good, but as it plays out in practice is faulted.

Two items of interest for Independence his week. First, it was announced that the city and Global are negotiating an agreement for the hockey team. There is an ownership group in place and a franchise president installed. While history would indicate that hockey doesn't play in this area. There have been many teams in KC since 1922. The longest lasting was 5 years for a league champion. Most lasted 4 years or less. Perhaps the economy will help this team. Tickets will be cheaper than the chief's. Also, if you like soccer you will probably like hockey.

The city council held the first reading of this TIF ordinance this evening. It went about as expected. MCI developer said they had to have $6M or no project. The IRMC developer said they had to have $10M or no project. Lucy Young asked most of the questions, suggested split should be $9M - $3M. Final vote was 6-2 with Young and I think Page voted no. Swoffer was absent.

The Tax Increment Finance Committee recommendations goes to City Council for first reading on Monday, the 23rd. so this is my last post on the subject. Just a brief recap. On March 5 at 11.31 p.m. Adrianne DeWeese posted to the Examiner what should have been a warning shot to all of us. I must admit I missed this article at the time. Don't know if I am just getting old or was that one of the days our paper wasn't delivered. The posting was reporting on the meeting that evening of the TIF committee.

I have been in contact with the Architect for Truman Manor and have gained the following information.
The city is requiring storm water detention for the entire site. Due to terrain features it will be mostly underground at a cost of $1.8M.
They are also asking TIF funds for interior partition removal since it does involve asbestos removal. In round figures this amounts to about $4.1M
Both of these figures seem reasonable to me. I have requested that ICED supply us with similar data for IRMC, but have not received anything as of this date.

This was printed in the Examiner on either Mar. 11 or 12, 2009. If anybody out there can understand it I would appreciate being enlightened. I am especially interested in the discussion following priority four.

We have questioned the $10M in TIF funds that the TIF commission granted to the IRMC 'incubator" and we received a lot of good information. Now let's turn our attention to the Truman Manor TIF request. In their application, Truman Manor, LLC asked for $6M in TIF funds. They were granted $2M. We have no way of judging if that is enough, too much or just right, since there has been little publicity about the project. My immediate reaction is, if this money were not being supplied through a prior agreement with Centerpointe, then there should be no TIF funds at all.

I am starting a new thread for this subject. The earlier one was getting a bit spread out.
Yesterday we learned more about the TIF being applied to the IRC and MCI sites than we were able to discover in the past year. We learned:

Obama has revealed his latest plan for caring for our wounded vets. The VA will continue to treat all Vets with service connected injuries or illnesses, but rather than the cost being borne by the VA, the VA will bill the Vets private insurance carrier. I wonder how many private insurance companies will offer a policy for veterans who have multiple injuries sustained during combat, or illnesses contracted during service anywhere? This is the change the American people voted for.

It will be interesting to see how the latest plan for small businesses plays out. The key may lie in the definition of small. To the SBA it can be anything from a business with a gross income from $500,000 to $25M annually. Also, the SBA  doesn't make loans, they insure them, so the business still must find a lender. I am not familiar with the current regs, but it used to be the firm had to have been in business a minimum of two years. The best part of Obama's announcement today was the tax breaks for the small business. These should have been done a long time ago.

There is a new study out which indicates that men (and we assume women) reach their peak learning ability at age 26, and that by age 42 the ability to absorb and learn new information is severely diminished. I say we have 535 proofs of this study in Washington, D.C.

A Secretary of State who's husband accepts money from foreign countries. Can you say conflict of interest?
An Attorney General who was instrumental in obtaining pardons for a con man who promptly skipped with $100M and 4 terrorists who promptly went back to terror
A Secretary of the Treasury who doesn't pay his taxes
A CIA chief who is great at PR but a bit short on Intelligence procedures.
Sounds like the same play, just a different cast of characters.