Everybody's doing it.
The Belleville, Ill. News-Democrat reports that tax increment financing is being considered for a prime business area in Fairview Heights, Ill. to entice CBL and Associates Properties of Chattanooga, Tenn., to build a 9.96 acre shopping center.
CBL and Associates recently made its entry into the Joplin area as the new owner of Northpark Mall.
According to the News-Democrat article, the Fairview Heights City Council reduced its normal 15-percent application fee for such a project. The fee, which normally would have been $750,000 was reduced to $7,500.
One difference between the way Joplin set up its recent TIF district and the way it is being done in Fairview Heights is the time factor. CBL is months away from getting final approval, the article said.
Illinois law requires a review by all taxing districts in the area, including schools, and a public hearing.
The article said the shopping center has the kind of upscale trendy shops that cities which employ these TIF districts seem to cherish. "It is expected to employ 226 full-time equivalent jobs and generate about $2.2 million a year in anticipated sales tax revenue." Of course. those figures come from CBL officials.
As always, the city officials said they offered the tax incentives so they would not lose CBL's business.
When will city council members realize that they do not have to give away the store in order to attract business?
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The former McDonald County sheriff candidate who is facing federal weapons charges has asked for a continuance of his Jan. 25 pretrial conference. According to a motion filed today in U. S. District Court for the Western District of Missouri, Randy Alan Hance has executed a waiver of his constitutional right to a speedy trial and is asking that the pretrial conference be moved to sometime after March.
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A proposal for a Jasper County law enforcement sales tax could pose problems for the Joplin R-8 School District's tax levy proposal. Tonight's Carthage Press featured a solid story from editor Ron Graber examining the sales tax, which has been requested by Sheriff Archie Dunn. Hitting taxpayers with too many proposals at one time could result in the defeat of all of them. County commissioners are considering putting the proposal on the ballot either in April or June.
Another factor to be considered is that law enforcement for municipalities such as Joplin, Webb City, Carl Junction, and Carthage, is handled by local police departments, which would not be receiving any 0f the money.
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Though it wasn't listed anywhere on the preliminary agenda on the school's website, the Diamond R-4 Board of Education, during its meeting tonight, discussed requiring drug tests for students who participate in extracurricular activities. A majority of district patrons seem to favor the move, which any regular reader of The Turner Report knows that I do not favor drug testing for students. Does the Diamond R-4 School District have a drug problem? Certainly, all school districts have that problem these days, and some of those who are using drugs are athletes or band members, or students who participate in some other school activity, but the biggest problem is with students who are not involved in any activity and, by law, those students cannot be subjected to drug tests.
This is an unfair intrusion on student privacy. And since other schools are doing it, naturally there will be more and more, including Diamond, who jump on the bandwagon.
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KOAM's report on the Diamond School Board meeting featured an interview with the school superintendent. I looked up to see who was being interviewed and from the way he appeared,I was expecting the man to break into a chorus of "Have a Holly, Jolly Christmas!"
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Speaking of Diamond, Diamond High School and MSSU graduate Kaylea Hutson continues to do strong work as lifestyles editor at The Carthage Press. Today's Press featured an informative look at the battle between Nexstar Broadcasting, owner of KSNF and owner in everything but name of KODE, and Cox Communications.
Nexstar has threatened to pull its stations from Cox's cable systems in Carthage and Lamar if it doesn't receive 30 cents per customer per month from Cox. The same ultimatum was rejected by Cable One in Joplin, which no longer carries the two Joplin stations.
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Associated Press carried a story on Nexstar today. A media analyst said most confrontations, such as the ones going on between Nexstar and Cox, and Nexstar and Cable One end with the TV station backing down. "If they withhold their signal from cable, their ad revenue falls by 75 percent or so," Craig Moffett, a media analyst with Sanford Bernstein, told AP, noting that only viewers with satellite dishes or antennas can get the local stations
Advertisers have already been expressing their concerns to the Nexstar stations in Joplin and have been asking for deep discounts. Some have taken the lion's share of their business to KOAM, while others continue to put their ads on cable, where they are distributed to the local cable provider's time on all of its stations.
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State Senator Gary Nodler's Education Committee hold its first meeting 2 p.m. Tuesday, Jan. 18, in Senate Committee Room 1. It will be a while before the committee addresses the Foundation Formula, through which Missouri public schools are funded. The first meeting addresses issues facing higher education, including Nodler's bill to add two voting members to the Missouri Southern State University Board of Regents and a bill submitted by Rep. Norma Champion, R-Springfield, to rename Southwest Missouri State University to Missouri State University. The latter proposal has been strongly opposed by legislators in the Columbia area, who fear the name change would increase the Springfield university's prestige at the expense of the University of Missouri-Columbia.
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The first Senate committee to deal with public elementary and secondary education will be the Appropriations Committee when it meets 8 a.m. Wednesday, Jan. 19, in Senate Committee Room 2. Testimony will be given by officials from the State Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE). The committee will hold hearings for budget requests from the Department of Higher Education the following day.