Woodstock District 200’s School Board decided to delay making a decision on whether to sue the Village of Lakewood in an attempt to invalidate its Tax Increment Financing District until December 30th.
The reason was that agreement had been reached for Lakewood Village Officials to meet with District 200 Officials on December 22nd.
Lakewood Village Trustee Bev Thomas read a letter from Village President Erin Smith asking for a meeting, the letter having been written before the meeting agreed to. It said that what the School District was planning to do was a “very public and antagonistic action,” if I heard her correctly.
Thomas followed four Woodstock School District residents who supported the suit:
- Barb Gessert
- Susan Handelsmanm, who started fight against the TIF District
- Cyndi Hemauer, a candidate for Republican Precinct Committeeman in Dorr 7
- Joe Tirio, who sponsored a seminar on the downsides of TIF Districts
After the five spoke, School Board President Camille Goodwin, who attended Joe Tirio’s seminar on TIF Districts, noted there were “numerous inaccuracies in this letter.”
She said the Board had been trying to obtain a meeting for at least six weeks, but there was “no reply until [the potential suit was] in the paper.”
Here is the memo justifying the suit:
In other action, the Board passed a flat real estate tax levy.
It was estimated that someone living in a $200,000 home would see a $16 tax cut because of the increased assessed valuation from new construction in the district.
After I left, the Board was expected to approve a new teachers contract.
Before voting on the resolution to file suit against Lakewood tif, school board chairwoman stated that she had a meeting with Lakewood scheduled for December 22nd.
Another board member immediately suggested tabling the resolution.
Superintendent Moan interjected (before a hastily called vote) that a next meeting be scheduled in order to vote upon the current resolution in a timely way.
(Presumably Superintendent Moan was referring to the statute of limitations on filing suit against an entity created January of 2015).
A meeting was scheduled for December 30th.
This motion to table the lawsuit resolution passed without dissent.
Interpretation of events:
1. School board chairwoman wishes to ink a deal with Lakewood in order to block Woodstock citizens’ rights to invalidate the Lakewood tif on obvious legal grounds.
2. School board chairwoman seeks to structure a deal with Lakewood in order to block Woodstock citizens’ attempts to re-district all tif resident student enrollment into schools which educate all Lakewood children and receive all Lakewood property tax dollars.
Data:
1. Woodstock D200 levies over $9000 per student per year to property taxpayers.
2. Lakewood tif students, expected initially to be 60 based upon 2015 Lakewood resolution to build 100 unit low income housing in tif, will create an annual cost burden for Woodstock property taxpayers of $540,000.
($9000 X 60).
3. Lakewood has just announced more high-end luxury residential development.
300 more luxury housing units creates a need for 30 more “Illinois
Affordable Housing Act”- compliant units.
30 more low- income housing units will predictably create 18 more
student enrollment into D200.
18 X $9000 = $162,000.
This will make the near term expected ANNUAL cost burden for Woodstock taxpayers a total of $702,000.
That is, $702,000 per year which impoverished Woodstock must pay in order to educate children of wealthy Lakewood, while Lakewood receives all tif property tax revenues form tif.
For the next 35 years.
3. While tif money is most often described as ‘for infrastructure’, tif money is actually used to gift developers with land and grant funding.
Lakewood could issue plain vanilla sewer and water bonds ( as they have done before in developmental expansion), and then all the taxing bodies providing services such as education would be fairly paid for services provided.
Suggestions:
1. Prior to meeting with Lakewood, obtain a ‘tolling agreement’ with Lakewood which preserves all rights for Woodstock D200 to initiate lawsuit beyond today.
2. Make all details of negotiations a matter of public scrutiny and debate in time for citizens to initiate legal action on their own if necessary.
3. Any school board member with conflicts due to relationships with Lakewood, Lakewood tif, the tif- promotion industry, or developers in negotiation to participate in Lakewood tif should recuse him or herself from negotiations, voting, or influencing votes on this issue.
Paul Serwatka.
You won office on this issue.
What is your position?
To be completely fair, the TIF presentation was hosted by Voters in Action, a group that I am proud to be a part of.
You can view the TIF presentation at the link below.
Tom Tresser of the TIF Illumination Project talks TIFs in Woodstock: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XNuSPe76ucM
I am CAUTIOUSLY optimistic.
On the one hand, the more frequently we get TIFs in the news, the more frequently we can highlight their pitfalls and make them even less desirable.
On the other hand, there is a lot at risk and a lot of money in play.
Susan’s analysis is right on the mark and we need to get involved or suffer the consequences.
Contact the members of D200 and Lakewood Village and let them know how you feel about the issue.
For contact lists, agendas and meeting times for most McHenry county municipal bodies, visit http://www.votersinaction.com/civic-switchboard.html
Superintendent Moan and members of Woodstock D200 Board:
1. Demand a tolling agreement, immediately, from Lakewood, in order to preserve all rights to initiate legal action.
If Lakewood refuses, immediately institute OMA compliant action to vote on resolution tabled at December 15 meeting.
2. Obtain written conflict statements from school board members who will vote on this issue.
Obtain written conflict statements from any school board members empowered to negotiate with Lakewood on behalf of D200.
3. Declare that no detachment-annexation rights of tif properties will be signed away as part of any negotiated agreement with Lakewood.
That is, citizens of Woodstock may retain the rights to insist that Lakewood tif district students be detached/annexed into Lakewood school districts ( CL 155&47).
4. Lakewood tif represents millions of dollars of diverted property tax dollar cash flow, predictably for 35 years.
Any D200 representatives negotiating details of any deal which abrogates the rights of D200 taxpayer citizens should be excruciatingly careful to avoid even the appearance of impropriety or obfuscation.
Immediately schedule OMA compliant meeting to make public the transcripts/videotape/ record of ANY negotiations with Lakewood regarding Lakewood tif.
Require that any D200 school board member who has a conflict of interest due to financial benefit related to Lakewood or the tif-promotion industry recuse himself or herself from participating in negotiations with Lakewood tif to forestall this lawsuit.
So let me get this straight, Lakewood’s mayor Erin Smith doesn’t view what she’s doing as “a very public and antagonistic action” ?
by making WOODSTOCK SCHOOL DIST take on liability for students that live in Lakewood while keeping all the taxes from those residents in her pet project TIF????
This needs to be explained to her????
Just a guess, but I see her admiring the stones of Hilary Clinton!