Thursday, February 4, 2010
Chicagoland / Politics / Clout City Haunted By All You Tweakers With Your Hands Out
Posted by Whet Moser on 02.04.10 at 10:05 PM
Remember the fuss that South Carolina lite guv Andre Bauer made when he said that you couldn't just give stuff to poor people on public assistance because, like stray animals, they'll just keep coming back around? I think the most offensive thing about it was the idea that the concept was something limited to poor people:
[T]he [Willis] tower's team has been shopping for a whopping subsidy, at least $100 million under the tax-increment financing program, said Ald. Robert Fioretti, whose 2nd ward includes the property."
Well, at least they've come down in the past few months:
[A]ccording to Second Ward alderman Robert Fioretti, Jack George, a lawyer for American Landmark, has been pushing for the city to spend up to $200 million in TIF dollars on the building. "George first came to me two summers ago, in 2008," says Fioretti. "I'm still fighting [him] over that—it's a lot of money for one building." The project would need approval by the Community Development Commission and the City Council.George is a principal in the law firm Daley & George. His partner, Michael Daley, is the mayor's brother. George didn't return a call for comment.
But they probably won't leave empty-handed; from the same article on the city's TIF shadow budget:
the city has "pending" plans to spend still more—$13 million in 2010 and another $15 million in 2011—for a line item called "Willis Tower Rehab & Modernization Project." The budget also proposes four other payments of unspecified amounts for the Willis rehab after 2011, all slated to come out of the LaSalle Central TIF coffers.
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Really goes to show how the whole TIF process has been bastardized over the years. The original idea was for depressed properties to get a tax break, the proceeds of which would be used to rehab them over a period of years. At the expiration of the TIF district, they'd be subject to full property tax assessment, and everybody wins. The property owner gets a better property and the taxing districts (and taxpayers) that forewent their revenue over a period of years would receive more, in theory, than if no TIF had been in effect. How the "Willis" tower in any way fits the program is something that would take a LOT of explaining. Like most such well-meaning programs, TIF has become just one more way for rich people to become richer at the expense of taxpayers.
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