Council Meets Tonight - Hold Onto Your Wallets

The City-County Council meets tonight.  Increasing your taxes and siphoning off property taxes from known future development to pay for corporate tax handouts instead of cops, are on the agenda.

The Council will vote on raising the local car rental tax from 4 to 6% (Prop 24) and raising ticket tax from 6 to 10% (Prop 23).  They will also vote on Prop 448, which puts back the nearly $32 million Mayor Vaughn slashed from County Office 2013 budgets; a move that made no fiscal sense, just created blackmail fodder.  These are all to have public hearings, as they are fiscal ordinances.

Prop 291, the Mid-North TIF, will be voted on as well, but no public hearing is to be held.  This plan specifically removes property taxes derived from the taxpayer-funded Broad Ripple parking garage from common good uses, like paying for public safety in places like Broad Ripple, to paying for public art near Broad Ripples innumerable bars and park upgrades to Tarkington Park.  Developer driven tax handouts are anticipated within the 1 square mile of the TIF district as well.  If things go well, Mapleton-Fall Creek, an actual area of need, just may get a project financed with TIF dollars.

Among the Proposals being introduced tonight is Prop 33, sponsored by Councillors Talley and Robinson, which directs DPW to use $3 million of its 2013 RebuildIndy funds for Avondale-Meadows infrastructure improvements.  This proposal is being offered to substitute for the expansion of the Fall Creek Place TIF which proponents hoped to use to attract a grocery store.  These proponents now suggest more investments of TIF dollars were also hoped for, once the grocery was in place and the TIF fund grew.   I do not know what those projects were expected to be or if they simply expected to spend any and all TIF dollars that amassed beyond the initials needs.

Also likely making an appearance is newly selected Councillor Jefferson Shreve, whose residency qualifications for that office were called into question over the weekend.  Selected Saturday morning, questions arise, trail of documents unearthed by Saturday afternoon.  Somewhere in that time, they GOP hastily swore Shreve in.  You can read all about it on the Advance Indiana and Ogden On Politics blogs.

Councillor Scales Reacts to New Funding Mechanism for Avondale-Meadows

Councillor Christine Scales, co-sponsor of the proposed expansion of the Fall Creek TIF she had hoped would be used for the benefit of Avondale-Meadows residents, reacted on Facebook to the news the Councillors Talley and Robinson would introduce a proposal with an alternate funding mechanism.  Scales is a Republican, while Talley and Robinson are Democrats.  Here is her post:

News to Me: Talley&Robinson coming to aid of Avondale Meadows It would have been helpful for any of the committee members who voted against the Avondale Meadows TIF to have shared their concerns with me before the MDEC meeting, when it was voted to be tabled. The co-sponsor, Councillor Steve Talley never shared any misgivings with me. It was obvious through Talley's prepared statement, and the ready agreement by others who opposed the TIF, that they never intended to consider testimony given during the meeting. The decision to oppose was made prior to the meeting's start. Now,Talley and Robinson are sponsoring a new proposal in my district without any discussion first with me, the councillor, representing the Avondale Meadows District. I have to mention that the TIF was needed not just for a grocery store but to advance further revitalization in the area. I don't need to be psychic to know that whatever these two D's propose will pass. There will be no record of them ever having voted against the TIF, as the proposal will die due to tabling. The D's will get credit for "helping" the neighborhood and no Republican will receive any credit for years of committed work in the Avondale Meadows area-which was the D's motive for not supporting the Avondale Meadows TIF all along."

Different Funding Mechanism To Be Proposed for Avondale-Meadows Area

Councillors Steve Talley and Leroy Robinson will introduce a proposal to the Council on January 28, that will include alternate funding to substitute for the failed Avondale-Meadows TIF proposal. 

The Metropolitan & Economic Development committee tabled indefinitely (AKA - killed) Prop 349 Monday night.  Prop 349 was passionately presented and championed by Councillor Christine Scales (see "Case for Meadows TIF")  That proposal included an expansion of the Fall Creek TIF to assist the Avondale-Meadows area in attracting a grocery store.  The TIF would exist for 25 years, even though the grocery store project bonds likely would have a term of only 10 years.  Deputy Mayor for Economic Development/Director of the Bond Bank Deron Kintner, doing financial calculations on the fly, estimated that the $3 million bond would take $10 million to pay off in 10 years.  Why a bond would have to have these terms is totally beyond reason - but that's what Kintner said.

Talley and Robinson, who voted against the proposed TIF, will introduce a proposal with alternate funding to meet the goals of the Avondale-Meadows area residents to attract a grocery store - which is absolutely critical for the residents to have available healthy, normally priced food.  They are now subject to the absurdly high prices and paucity of fresh food from convenience stores and the like.

I look forward to reviewing the new proposal once it is introduced.  And, I am glad that something is being done to provide the good folks of the Avondale-Meadows area with critical tools to lift up their quality of life.

Case for Meadows TIF

At last night's Metropolitan & Economic Development committee meeting, Councillor Christine Scales, sponsor of the proposed Meadows TIF, summarized the work that has been going on in the neighborhood and made the case for a TIF, needed to entice a grocery store that is 'waiting in the wings'.  Here are her opening comments: