REGULAR MEETING JUNE 23, 2008
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<br />not civilized. That does not belong in a civilized society, especially in an electronic
<br />world where people are dependent on those public libraries to apply for jobs and any
<br />number of other things. The computers that are available at the library are used by poor
<br />people who don’t have computers or computer access in their homes. That’s criminal,
<br />that’s not civilized. South Bend has public schools that are suffering, this is keeping the
<br />city from becoming all that it can become. She stated that residents wants to be forward
<br />looking and want new development in many places in the city. TIF money should not be
<br />used for that, because the new tax base that results from that is not available to the city as
<br />whole for too long of a time.
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<br />Ms. Kelly Havens, 12032 Timberline Trace North, Granger, Indiana, stated that a TIF
<br />district is based on the assumption that you are dealing with a blighted area. She would
<br />argue that a lot of green space on the west side of the city is not blighted. She stated that
<br />everyone has already been informed that the State has declared that if your TIF district is
<br />already healthy funded and able to fund itself, you don’t need to be expanding it, without
<br />going through and extensive process after July 1, 2008. If they think that process is
<br />important to preventing actions that don’t make economic sense why does it make sense
<br />to scurry in and take that action before there is any time to really review whether it makes
<br />any sense? TIF’s remove money that would otherwise reduce the tax burden for all the
<br />rest of the taxpayers. If new companies do move in, instead of all of their new taxes that
<br />they start paying going to help the school corporation, going to help the libraries, going to
<br />help the city and going to help the county, general government, all the rest of taxpayers
<br />have to make up whatever money their not putting into the coffers. That money just gets
<br />set aside for use for infrastructure and there are only a certain number of streets and
<br />fountains, trees, and lights that can be put in. How much sense does it make to have a pot
<br />that is currently sitting 27 million dollars for doing more fountains, more landscaping,
<br />more fancy lampposts, when you’ve got a school corporation that desperately needs
<br />money, and a county that is worried about keeping all of it’s police officers, and a city
<br />that is concerned about it’s parks, and libraries that can’t stay open as the previous
<br />speaker mentioned. Why does it make sense to keep pooling the money for use on
<br />infrastructure in that area and ask all of the taxpayers outside of that area to instead come
<br />up with all of those millions of dollars to go ahead and take care of the schools, etc? Of
<br />course everyone wants to see growth, but why would the taxpayers be excited when they
<br />see a new business going in, if we know that their tax dollars are never going to help
<br />everyone else. The taxpayers will have to keep providing the money that they would
<br />have been providing if they hadn’t been TIF’ed, but because they are TIF’ed there money
<br />is just all going into a special little pot and it isn’t just that the taxpayer’s aren’t going to
<br />get their money it’s were going to be pouring money into them, just as the previous
<br />speaker mentioned, they are going to have fire, police, emergency services needs and that
<br />is going to come from the taxpayers. So the taxpayers are not just going to lose what
<br />they would have brought to the community, but the taxpayers are paying to have them
<br />come here. It’s a double burden on taxpayers at a time when the last thing wanted is to
<br />create higher taxes in St. Joseph County. Finally, for what ever reason, TIF’s have not
<br />been working on the west side. Blackthorn after all of these years is pretty much
<br />regarded as a failure. Buildings moved in a few of them, and then once abatement’s ran
<br />out them moved into the new phase, to get new abatement’s and once those ran out then
<br />they left. Portage Prairie has been around how many years now, and it has one building,
<br />and the taxpayers are supposed to be enthused. That building didn’t create any jobs, or so
<br />few that they were not worth mentioning apparently. Everyone looks at University Park
<br />Mall and says why not here? She stated that everyone needs to seriously ask themselves
<br />how many University Park Malls can any area reasonably sustain. She argued that boat
<br />has already been floated, that has already happened. You cannot do that again, in an
<br />economy that is based on service, without manufacturing to sustain it, we are all going to
<br />sell stuff to each other, and ultimately, the area cannot thrive as an economic community
<br />if only service centers are created. There is a reason why the State put the skids on this
<br />kind of speculation, and the Council should seriously consider at least giving the
<br />additional couple of weeks that it would take to sort through all of this, instead of jump
<br />the gun and bypass the wisdom of the State.
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<br />Ms. Marilyn Gashaw, 2514 W. Kenwood, South Bend, Indiana, stated that she is
<br />speaking on behalf of herself tonight. She stated that she grew up in South Bend,
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