Crystal Lake monument marking the eastern edge of the Virginia Street TIF District. Cost – $16,000. Cost for four – $64,000.
The Virginia Street Tax Increment Financing District is a public expenditure that keeps on giving feed stock for stories.
First it was the absurd waste of money for four pillars to mark the edges of the district which provides the money for improvements and fixes for improvements that don’t work from the Crystal Lake Motel to the Pizza Hit on Route 14.
$16,000 each.
$64,000 in all.
The names of the members of the Crystal Lake City Council should have been chiseled on each of these monuments to needless spending.
Why do I care?
Because I and every other taxpayer outside the Virginia Street TIF District are paying for them.
That’s because when a municipality decides to put property in a TIF District, it is reserving for itself all of any increase in tax revenue resulting from increased assessed value.
Sounds harmless, doesn’t it?
But, what do the other tax districts do?
Unless restricted by the Property Tax Cap–as the McHenry County Conservation District is–tax districts usually ask for the maximum amount allowed under the Tax Cap and the County Clerk’s Office, following the law, raises out their tax rates until the amount allowed under the Tax Cap will be raised.
You will note an ad inviting people to a Woodstock meeting about Tax Increment Financing Districts by an expert from Chicago. I encourage your attendance, if you really care about one very real element that is causing your taxes to increase.
The second TIF District failure were the ornamental lights.
They were too heavy for the polls.
They had to be replaced. (See link to articles below.)
Now, we have the cross walk failure.
In December of 2014, a crew was fixing the crosswalks at McHenry Avenue and Virginia Street.
Last year in the ornamental crosswalks were repaired in December.
Look closely and you can see the crosswalk is cracked to the left of the manhole cover.
Did you notice the crosswalks where the concrete (I think) is cracked?
Fresh asphalt replaced the decorative TIF crosswalks at the corner where Ron’s Auto Service Center is located.
Last week, I noticed that the decorative crosswalks at Virginia Street and McHenry Avenue had been removed and replaced with asphalt.
Stopping to talk to the workmen, I discovered they did not know about Tax Increment Financing Districts are.
Thursday night, I saw lights near the intersection of Dole Avenue and Virginia Street.
Men remove the old crosswalk in the dead of night.
The men were removing the original TIF-financed crosswalk in preparation of installing an asphalt one.
Why does this happen?
It is my belief that city officials treat TIF money as “free money.”
I remember that the Crystal Lake City Council found they had the ability to spend a final million dollars before the Downtown TIF District expired.
They decided to spend it burying electric, telephone and cable lines under the sidewalks on East Crystal Lake Avenue.
= = = = =
Other articles that may be of interest:
- 6-10-8 Free (TIF) Money
- 12-29-8 A Crystal Lake Shell Game?
- 11-4-11 Ribbon Cutting on Virginia Street TIF Project
- 11-7-11 Crystal Lake TIF Monuments Cost $16,000 Each – Cost Updated/Corrected Downward
- 11-17-11 A Way to Recoup the Costs of the Virginia Street TIF Monuments
- 4-22-13 Virginia Street TIF Trouble?
- 5-7-13 Virginia Street TIF Lights Disappearance Explained
- 11-1-13 Replacements for Failed Virginia Street TIF District’s “Decorative” Street Lights Being Replaced Next Week
- 2-10-15 A View of TIFs from McHenry County
Bring back public pillories for these filthy greedy stupid spenders. Every one of them are simply crooks.
Anyone with half a brain knew that wear, winter, and salt would destroy the paver type crosswalks.
Such waste and pretense.
Good sense seems to elude elected officials.
If you are interested in learning more about TIFs and how they affect you and the area you live in, we invite you to attend:
TIFs: Help or Hurt? Public Defender Tom Tresser speaks on the TIF issues that all property taxpayers need to know!
The presentation is free but seating is limited so please visit the link below and reserve your seat.
http://www.votersinaction.com/BookingRetrieve.aspx?ID=57764
Thanks for the goo info, Joe.
Vote for him for County Recorder.
He is the BEST choice.
These are all local politicians wasting money probably so these companies doing the work vote for them.
Call up en masse to complain because that is why taxes are so high in McHenry County a so called conservative county.
Also in the old days when a contractor’s work did not last a certain amount of time they were responsible for fixing it not getting another contract.
“Anyone with half a brain knew that wear, winter, and salt would destroy the paver type crosswalks. Such waste and pretense. Good sense seems to elude elected officials.”
Durability of concrete pavers on most applications is excellent.
The red concrete squares shown are placed concrete with a color additive, not concrete pavers.
Poured concrete may or may not stand up to the rigors of traffic and deicing salts depending on the concrete design and the placement technique.
Karma – you’re dead right about this.
We have the buddy system that allows for providing cushy, profitable and non-needed contracts to businesses inside this system.
Politicians are corrupt and freely spend money to support their friends, families and egos.
The best way to stop, or really curtail, this is to cut the supply of $s.
We need to eliminate the funding, shrink government period.
All great idea’s to remove these wasteful pick-pocketers just try to get CL voters off their Duffs when its time to Vote them OUT! is another animal all in itself
they don’t care about their tax $$ like us,
I would love for them to pay mine and then let’s see how fast they wake up!
and get out and vote them outta here!