06-23-08 Common Council Minutes - Laserfiche WebLink

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REGULAR MEETING JUNE 23, 2008 however, spent much of her adult life in Indianapolis. To compare South Bend to Indianapolis is like comparing apples to oranges. Indianapolis can generate a TIF district much quicker that here in South Bend. She stated that she doesn’t understand the great rush, because if this is a good business plan, as the Holladay Corp. has expressed, then down state would view it as a good business plan. As far as the jobs are concerned, if you don’t have transportation to get employees to service type jobs, then what good is it to bring those jobs to the City. Ms. Gashaw stated that coming from a place where she had choices to live, suburbia or inner-city; she chose the inner-city and did that as a matter of choice. She would like to have that choice in South Bend, but there is not much of an inner-city to want to live in, because South Bend doesn’t even have brightly colored cross walks here, nothing that is enticing a person to want to move to the inner-city. She stated that South Bend needs to re-focus some of the funds to the inner-city. She stated that she doesn’t totally oppose this project; however, she would like more information, like how many TIF dollars are really being talked about spending. What are the short term goals, there is just more information that needs to be put out for the public to hear. Ms. Gashaw urged the Council not to make a decision tonight. Ms. Kathy Biaschke, 24440 Adams, South Bend, Indiana, stated that she hopes that what she has to say is not taken a redirect. She stated that she listened to the expectations and the projections and the ideas of Holladay properties and how the taxpayers are supposed to have good faith in their actions. But from what she has seen, she has one son that has been living in Indianapolis for four (4) years and her older son lives in Chicago and has lived there for a number of years, and she has seen first had the types of development that has happened at the Holladay Corp. property in Indianapolis. She has a hard time having good faith in a corporation that doesn’t outright own the land and the taxpayers are expected to have 450 acres of land that the taxpayers are going to have to put their investment in, but yet they have not invested in the sale of the purchase of that property. She noted that they do not own that property, and they are not property tax payers of that property. The original owners remain to pay the taxes, and she remains to be a property taxpayer since she graduated from LaSalle High School in 1971 and has been paying property taxes. She stated that she doesn’t want to be overburden to pay her share. She feels that everyone should pay their fair share and that’s the way it should be. Holladay Properties expectations of getting off the hook to provide some of the things that they need to get money back on their investment cannot be put on the taxpayers to help pave their way. 27 million dollars, 450 acres, how much of that is going to be down the drain and bleed off for that particular operation. The promises that have been said are not concrete promises as to shore up the badly needed situation at LaSalle Square, the Studebaker Corridor. She stated that on her way here tonight to the meeting, she drove down Bendix Drive, because she cannot afford to waste a whole lot of time, listening to issue that she cannot change, because she has a lot of neighbors that say, the Council is going to do what they want to do. She stated that when she drove down Bendix Drive and saw all the empty buildings along Voorde Dr., one of those buildings moved from that location and moved out into one of the tax exempt areas. She stated that she has a hard time understanding how many more times can the Council tax exempt these kinds of situations and expect the taxpayers to pay for the services that this kind a development will use. To bleed out taxpayer’s money for some special interest cause, just because they did some good things in Portage, Indiana and have gotten good results there, South Bend is a totally different area; it’s not comparing apples to apples, its apples to oranges. She stated that four (4) years ago she went to Indianapolis and took photographs of the Holladay project and brought them back for the Council to see the abuses of environmental situations fell on deaf ears. She intends to go back to Indianapolis and report back what has happened in the last four (4) years since she recorded those abuses of the environment within that Holladay Property project. She stated that she envisions Portage Prairie to be more distribution centers, particularly with 10 million dollars being spent on Auten Road to make sure that semi’s have access to that area and then talking about spending more millions to have an interchange which on Brick Road and one just a few miles north over the State line, she fails to understand why tax dollars would or could be approved for that kind of expenditure. The State would frown on tax payer’s money being spent on this type of project. You cannot put the cart before the horse when it comes to enticing industry into an area; you have to spend money to make money. She stated that she cannot see the citizenry of South Bend and St. Joseph County being able to 30