Here’s the response to my request for information about the decorative Route 14 street lights paid for with money from people all over McHenry County through the Virginia Street Tax Increment Financing District:
The memo to merchants says there’s a “hardware” problem.
A year and a half ago in November of 2011, Crystal Lake city officials gathered in McCormick Park to dedicate the improvements along Virginia Street financed by that street’s Tax Increment Financing District.
Virginia Street TIF District money paid for ornamental street lights on Route 14. They replaced the utilitarian ones that previously lit the state highway.
Among the improvements were low and high street lights that matched.
During the week of rain, I was stopped at the light at McHenry Avenue and looked at the lights.
They were not the ornamental ones put there with TIF money.
The ornamental street lights have disappeared. It appears one at the corner of Route 14 and McHenry Avenue has been replaced with the type that were there originally or there is not light at all.
Saturday morning it was foggy.
How foggy?
Take a look at the water tower in McCormick Park next to the Crystal Lake Chamber of Commerce Building.
The Crystal Lake Water Tower in McCormick Park is partially blocked by an ornamental street light paid for by all McHenry County taxpayers through a Tax Increment Financing District.
In the foreground you can see one of the ornamental street lights financed by the Virginia Tax Increment Financing District.
One can tell where the boundaries of the Virginia Street TIF Districts are from these monuments to waste or the location of the $16,000 ornamental street lights on Route 14 in Crystal Lake.
That’s the one with the four $16,000 pillars at its borders on Route 14.
As I will keep repeating, a TIF District is a way for municipal officials to make off with property tax dollars which results in all other tax districts increasing their tax take in order to make up for the difference.
The latest village preparing to take part in this scam is Huntley. The village board is going to create a Downtown TIF District to raise money to make it look better.
That money will come out of the pockets of all McHenry County residents, because county government and the Conservation District cover Downtown Huntley.
I remember reading in either the First Electric Newspaper or the Northwest Herald that Trustee Pam Fender asked if the TIF District would raise taxes.
She accepted the consultant’s assurance that it was not.
The consultant was not telling the truth.
And that brings us back to our “Message of the Day”.
Maybe the TIF consultant was just blowing smoke.
New traffic lights, an old street light and a new street light on Route 14 at Virginia Street.
The Route 14 Tax Increment Financing District expenditures come from everyone in McHenry County.
That’s the way TIF projects work.
Cities like Crystal Lake borrow money to pay for marginal projects and everyone in the county gets to pay for them when overlapping tax districts raise their tax rates to make up for the loss in income from property taxes diverted for the city mothers’ and fathers’ desires.
Note that I do not use the word “need.”
This is the first example of TIF money being spent on a “desire,” rather than a “need.”
See those street lights in the photo?
The old one is the tall one.
It apparently is not pleasing enough to the eye for members of the Crystal Lake City Council.
It’s not decorative enough.
The streetscape isn’t quaint enough.
Or something.
In any event, the new, lower and black street lights are now being installed.
The “old” (but not very old) taller (presumably paid for) street lights will be taken down.
And we’ll be paying for them probably for twenty years.
The only possible benefit is esthetic.
Beauty over utilitarianism, I guess.
Even if we weren’t in the biggest recession in all but one of the City Council members’ lives, it strikes me as waste.
It looks like one of those old time gas street lights, doesn’t it?
But it’s not.
It’s styled to look that wa, but it was just installed in front of the Crystal Lake Park District administrative building on East Crystal Lake Avenue with your Tax Increment Financing dollars.
I won’t go off on a rant about how TIFs increase all of our taxes in McHenry County when any municipality imposes one.
Today.
Let’s just enjoy what this beautification project looks like when the afternoon late winter sun was hitting just right.
I thought the city was going to bury all of the wires, but there still seem to be some in the background.
It looks like one of those old time gas street lights, doesn’t it?
But it’s not.
It’s styled to look that wa, but it was just installed in front of the Crystal Lake Park District administrative building on East Crystal Lake Avenue with your Tax Increment Financing dollars.
I won’t go off on a rant about how TIFs increase all of our taxes in McHenry County when any municipality imposes one.
Today.
Let’s just enjoy what this beautification project looks like when the afternoon late winter sun was hitting just right.
I thought the city was going to bury all of the wires, but there still seem to be some in the background.
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