There's a lesson to be learned here

Time after time many of us have been critical of the City of Oshkosh automatically doling out TIF districts whenever a developer comes 'a-calling. And we have seen at least one case in recent memory where a developer has not made good on his promises to the city in delivering what he claimed he would after getting property for a steal AND having a TIF created for him.

If and when TIF districts fail it is the taxpayers in that community who are left holding the bag, which is exactly why I have maintained for years that cities must be more judicious in creating TIF districts.

Some communities actually care about the taxpayers who foot the bill and they work hard to ensure that developers hold up their end of the bargain. I would encourage people, including our city staff and council members to visit this link and see what the City of Neenah is doing to make developers more accountable. Other communities, including Oshkosh, could learn a valuable lesson from this action.

Here's the link to an article in the Post Crescent that helps point out what I'm talking about.

- Cheryl Hentz

The following comments are owned by whomever posted them. This site is not responsible for what they say.

There's a lesson to be learned here
Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, May 21 2005 @ 12:10 PM MDT
I agree with Cheryl and the Neenah policy of a pre-sell requirement for city investment. That is good policy and better than what we do now. However, I disagree that cities lose money when TIF's fail. The same tax revenue is still collected if any new value created is slow in developing. The issue of the 100 block and back taxes is separate and not related to a TIF's success.

Thanks for highlighting this article.

There's a lesson to be learned here
Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, May 21 2005 @ 02:04 PM MDT
I agree with Cheryl also, but tell me, if cities don't lose when TIF's fail, then why do cities like Neenah care if the TIF is successful or not and why do some communities exercise even stricter requirements for TIF development? If there's nothing to lose then eected officials shouldn't care, right? They care because the taxpayers do lose and are on the hook when TIF's fail. But rather than debate this issue as we saw during the most recent election, maybe Cheryl has a point that we need to get our leaders to be tougher with developers before giving them the keys to a TIF or any other city money for a development that promises the sun, moon and stars.