McHenry County Blog

Crystal Lake used to get a lot of money from sales taxes?

"35 Days Till Christmas" could read the advertising sign next year.

To keep the dollars flowing, the Crystal Lake City Council voted to hike the city’s rate by 75%.

Advertising shopping opportunities in the city might help repay the $16,000 apiece that the city paid to erect four monuments marking the eastern and western edges of the Virginia Street Corridor Tax Increment Financing District.

What do you think?

Is it worth a try?

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Photoshopping by one Heck of a Guy blogster Allan Showalter.

Ford has no Route 14 presence in Crystal Lake anymore. Maybe a TIF monument ad would help sales elsewhere.

If the Crystal Lake wants to pay off the $64,000 that the four Virginia Street Tax Increment Financing District stone pillars cost, maybe car manufacturers would be a place to try to sell ads.

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Photoshopping by one Heck of a Guy blogster Allan Showalter.

"YOUR AD HERE" is how the Chicago Sun-Times caught reader's attention for this Bank of America ad on the Wabash Avenue Bridge monument.

Yesterday, I suggested that maybe the Crystal Lake City Council could recoup some of the $64,000 it spent of our money on four stone monuments telling people they were on Virginia Street.

I say “our” money because the $16,000 apiece pillars were financed with Tax Increment Financing District bonds.

These are bonds to be paid back by taxing any increase in the assessed valuation in the TIF District.

Those dollars that are lost by overlapping tax districts are then extracted from the pockets of other property taxpayers when their tax districts raise their tax rates.

Quite convoluted, I’ll admit.

It’s so hard to understand that Mayor Aaron Shepley contended that no one’s taxes would go up when the Council was considering the Vulcan Lakes-Route 14 TIF.

How no taxes would go up when an over $20,000 million project was going to be borrowed and paid back over 23 years was beyond this economics’ major’s imagination.

But, you can understand that city council members, aldermen and village trustees consider this “free money”–tax money to ve extracted for which they cannot be help responsible…because the process of picking people’s pockets is so indirect.

In any event, Chicago has decided to sell advertising on its bridge monuments.

After advancing the possibility on its front page last week, the Chicago Tribune printed a photo of the Bank of America ad on the Chicago River's Wabash Avenue Bridge monument on its front page Tuesday. "Desperate times?" asks the photo caption.

On Tuesday both the Chicago Sun-Times and the Chicago Tribune published photos of an ad bought by the Bank of America on the Chicago River Bridge monument.

If Chicago can do it, why can’t Crystal Lake?

Besides increasing parking fees and fining people $100 for speeding past a camera, Chicago Mayor Rahm Emmanuel has come up with an idea that might work in Crystal Lake.

He suggests selling space on public places, such as bridge monuments.

Here's what an advertisement might look llike on one of the monuments on the Michigan Avenue Bridge in Chicago.

If there, why not on the Virginia Street Tax Increment Financing District Corridor?

Crystal Lake might be able to pay for the $64,000 worth of pillars through advertising.

“I wonder how much the first lawsuit’s going to be for.”

The view at night while trying to get out onto Crystal Lake's Route 14 is blocked somewhat by one of the Virgiinia Street Tax Increment Financing District's $16,000 Monuments.

That’s what one person said about the blocking of the sight line from the Pizza Hut parking lot.

At least when the snow from last February’s blizzard blocked views on Route 14, one knew it eventually would melt.

It was dangerous getting out of Taco Bell nine months ago after the blizzard.

Looking west on Route 14, you can see the brand new TIF-financed monument in front of Fifth Third Bank and the one near Pizza Hut across the street. They cost $16,000 each and mark the edge of the Virginia Street Tax Increment Financing District. Note the decorative "brick work" around the monument. It can be seen at intersections as well.

The first one I saw was near Pizza Hut.

Get close enough to the new $16,000 monuments and you can see this symbol of the City of Crystal Lake.

What was it?

It looked like it belonged in a cemetery.

Friday, I learned city officials actually call them “monuments.”

On the monuments is the Crystal Lake City emblem or symbol: a “CL” with sailboat like sails filling in the “C” and the “L.”

So where does the money come from?

Let me quote the Chicago Sun-Times from August 16, 2009:

“TIFs re-direct taxes away from schools, parks and other local government agencies bankrolled by property taxes. Property taxes within a TIF district are frozen at existing levels for 23 years.”

And how much will it cost residents of McHenry County (because TIF districts export what’s spend to taxpayer in all overlapping tax districts and Crystal Lake, of course, is in McHenry County, the Conservation District, the Crystal Lake Park District, School Districts 155 and 47, etc.).

So, what’s the cost?

Mayor Aaron Shepley didn’t know when I asked Friday, but pointed me to someone in the City Engineering Department who would.

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What I heard over the phone was $60,000.  The real cost was $16,091, City Finance Director Mark Nannini called something after 10 AM to tell me.  Guess I misunderstood an answer to my question of “$16,000.”

I have revised the article and headline to reflect that cost.

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The answer  (drum roll) is

$16,000 for each one.

There are four.

So, when a local tax districts tells you it can’t afford something that costs $64,000, remember the found monuments on Route 14.

That’s where the money went.

At least the city council members did not insist that their names be placed on the monuments.

Most public officials with an edifice complex do.

Related articles:

• Message of the Day – Waste (10-6-11)
• Message of the Day – Waste (10-7-11)
• Is Another Crystal Lake TIF District in the Offing? (10-4-11)
• Message of the Day – Still More Crystal Lake TIF Waste on Route 14 (11-3-11)
• Ribbon Cutting on Virginia Street TIF Project (11-4-11)

I claim no knowledge that the Crystal Lake City Council might be contemplating another Tax Increment Financing District east of the one altering the “streetscape” between the stone cemetery monuments at Pizza Hut and across the street from Kwik Kopy.

Can Crystal Lake City Council members how out-of-place the electric lines and tall street lights appear east of the current Tax Increment Financing District?

But look at how different Route 14 looks east of Pizza Hit, compared to in the Tax Increment Financing District where there are no above ground power lines and the street lights are now short and black.

Will the Crystal Lake City Council be able to stand  the inconsistency?

Or will they conclude, “What the heck?   TIF money is free.  Let’s form another TIF District and make it look pretty, too?”

Will this be called TIFhedge years from now? As with Stonehedge, will people ask, "What does it mean?" Wait a minute. People are already asking that question.

What Mayor Aaron Shepley and council members want Crystal Lakers to believe is that Tax Increment Financing money doesn’t cost them anything.

Wrong, as a Chicago Reader reporter has virtually made a career writing about.

When municipalities create these little tax monsters. the result is that all other overlapping tax districts will raise their tax rates in order to capture the lost increase in assessed value stolen to benefit projects in the TIF District.

In the case of the Virginia Street TIF District, we’re talking

• McHenry County
• McHenry County Conservation District
• McHenry County Tuberculosis District
• High School District 155
• Grade School District 47
• Algonquin Township
• Algonquin Township Road & Bridge District
• Crystal Lake Park District
• Crystal Lake Library

Have I missed any tax districts that cover the Virginia Street TIP District?

On, I forgot the rest of Crystal Lake.

Taxpayers from throughout McHenry County will paying off local TIF priojects long after others of us are in a graveyard or an urn. And, come to think of it, some of these monuments in the Dundee Township Cemetery look like the two on Virginia Street.

Those who pay taxes to all of these tax districts will be the ones who pay for the new street lights, the new sidewalks, the fewer parking spaces, the new planters (complete with sprinklers).

City Council folks want people to believe that TIF improvements are free.

Well, most of us learned a long time ago that there is no free lunch. Or as the invitations come to us older folks for a free dinner, there is an investment pitch one must pay. At Wilderness Territory, we offered a $50 credit card, plus $100 off a restaurant meal if we would listen to a pitch for a condo or a time sharing deal, an offer quickly rejected.

The problem with TIFs is that there is no referendum. There isn’t even widespread understanding of how they raise taxes on people who have no idea that this sneaky tax hike affects them.

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A reader named Mark has left some insightful comments about TIF districts under this article entitled, “Waste”:

The Virginia Street Corridor TIF district is basically between Pizza Hut, 282 Virginia Street (Route 14) and Petco, 230 Virginia Street, in Crystal Lake.

It thus extends northwest from about Coventry (Pizza Hut), past Linn, McHenry, VanBuren, Washington, Pomeroy, King, Florence, Dole, Lakeshore Drive, to Carpenter (Petco).

VIRGINIA STREET CORRIDOR TAX INCREMENT FINANCING REDEVELOPMENT PLAN AND PROGRAM City of Crystal Lake, Illinois, February 2005
http://www.crystallake.org/Modules/ShowDocument.aspx?documentid=519

A 50 page document stating:

Total Estimated Project Costs: $9,291,000

2003 Equalized Assessed Valuations: $9,845,120

It is estimated that the incremental increase in property taxes over the term of the TIF District in 2003 dollars will be $12,085,875.

Upon the completion of anticipated redevelopment projects it is estimated that the equalized assessed valuation of real property within the Project Area will be in excess of $26,080,000.

This represents an approximate 165% increase in the total equalized assessed valuation.

The following taxing districts cover the proposed Project Area:

Algonquin Township, Algonquin Township Road and Bridge, City of Crystal Lake Fire, Crystal Lake Park District, City of Crystal Lake, College District #528, Crystal Lake Library, McHenry County, McHenry County Conservation District, School District #47, and School District #155.

Mark also provides information on the Main Street TIF district:

CRYSTAL LAKE AVENUE AND MAIN STREET TAX INCREMENT FINANCING REDEVELOPMENT PLAN AND PROGRAM, August 2005
http://www.crystallake.org/Modules/ShowDocument.aspx?documentid=518

Total Estimated Project Costs $35,000,000

The total 2004 equalized assessed valuation of the Project Area is $3,284,169.

The following 14 taxing districts cover the proposed redevelopment project area:

Algonquin Township, Algonquin Township Road and Bridge, Nunda Township, Nunda Township Road and Bridge, Nunda Township Cemetery, City of Crystal Lake Fire District, Crystal Lake Library District, Crystal Lake Park District, College District #528, McHenry County, McHenry County Conservation District, School District #47, School District #155, and City of Crystal Lake.

The principal source of funds will be the incremental increase in real property taxes attributable to the increase in the equalized assessed value of each taxable lot, block, tract or parcel of real property in the project area over the initial equalized assessed value of each such lot, block, tract or parcel.

Finally, Mark left this about the Vulcan Lakes TIF project:

VULCAN LAKES TAX INCREMENT FINANCING REDEVELOPMENT PLAN AND PROGRAM, August 2005

http://www.crystallake.org/Modules/ShowDocument.aspx?documentid=516

Total Estimated Project Costs $30,000,000

The total 2004 equalized assessed valuation of the Project Area is $4,786,053.

The following 11 taxing districts cover the proposed redevelopment project area:

Algonquin Township, Algonquin Township Road and Bridge, City of Crystal Lake Fire District, Crystal Lake Library District, Crystal Lake Park District, College District #528, McHenry County, McHenry County Conservation District, School District #47, School District #155, City of Crystal Lake.

Something that looks as if it ought to be in a cemetery showed up on Route 14 in Crystal Lake this week.

Yesterday, I pointed out what can happen when a local government has money for which no one can be held accountable.

Tax Increment Financing District money.

TIF money.

Everyone in McHenry County will pay to make Route 14 look better.

That’s because TIF Districts allow city officials to take money that otherwise would go to schools, park districts, county government, etc.

You’ve been reading how beneficiaries of Chicago TIF money miraculously concluded that they should give large donations to Mayor Richard Daley’s wife’s after school charity.

Locally, I have no reason something like that is happening, but there is definitely a tax shift to homeowners and businesses outside the TIF districts.

So, enjoy the new, “improved” streetscape as you drive through town.

Yesterday, I pointed out that perfectly serviceable street lights on Route 14 were about to be replaced with ones that I guess someone (maybe all) on the Crystal Lake City Council thought looked prettier.

Road construction near Dole Avenue was in progress Thrusday night.

They match the expensive ones that the City Council is forcing private property owners to put on properties they improve within sight of Route 14.  But, not to worry.   The City Council subsidized the purchase of those lights on private parking lots.

Today we look at another wasteful expenditure by the City Council.

It’s a monument near Pizza Hut.

It’s not exactly a pyramid.

More like a cemetery monument.

You see it above.

And it’s for Crystal Lake.

Maybe there’s more than one.

I, as everyone else who can do so, avoid Route 14 as much as possible.