The only exception to that came when former Joplin R-8 Superintendent C. J. Huff inexplicably lined up behind former Joplin master developer Wallace-Bajjali's creation of the largest TIF district in city history.
When Wallace took the plans for that district to the state legislature two years ago, he joked that even the school officials were behind it and "that never happens."
You can see how that worked out for the school district since Wallace-Bajjali bought the TIF Commission votes of Huff and R-8 CFO Paul Barr with the promise of a $13 million payout in the third year of the TIF and the construction of a new school, neither of which were ever going to happen.
Times are different and things are somewhat back to normal in Joplin. The R-8 School District is steadfastly opposing the proposed South Main Street TIF. Interim Superintendent Norm Ridder and Barr are scheduled to address the City Council during its 6 p.m. Monday meeting at City Hall.
The council is scheduled to have its first reading vote on approval of the TIF district Monday night.
This could get interesting. The Jasper county commission chose 3 people to serve on the R8 school board and 1 just happens to be on the Joplin TIF committee. The developers will argue the school district will benefit in the long run if they approve the S main TIF. Joplin already has the largest TIF district in the state of MO. That is siphoning large amounts of money away from our schools It will be difficult to argue an area that sits between Mercy, Freeman, Freeman East and blocks away from a new CVS and Walgreens is truly a blighted area. I would like to see the financials of the developers and what they propose before making a final determination but Norm Ridder and Paul Barr are absolutely doing the right thing, good for them. Hopefully their boss on the school board/TIF committee is ok with it.
ReplyDeleteJust so I understand, is this Ridder being informed of the previous shenanigans, and saying..'Oh hell no!'
ReplyDeleteI would say Ridder, unlike his predecessor, realizes that public school districts should oppose tax increment financing districts.
ReplyDeleteRidder and Barr are doing this at the request of the school board. They had to approve it first.
ReplyDeleteAnother way of saying this is that Huff was unique in not realizing in what a bad deal for school districts TIFs almost always are, as Wallace said, "that never happens".
ReplyDeleteMy impression was that Huff made the best of a bad situation. The schools had only two votes on the 11-member TIF Commission. Mark Rohr pushed for the TIF district. The TIF Commission voted for it unanimously. The City Council approved it. Two votes against it would not have stopped it. It appears Huff knew that and cut the best deal he could.
ReplyDeleteI sat on the TIF board and, the school district didn't have a chance opposing it. The schools alternative was getting a property tax accessed on a bare piece of property. What they were destin for was this property is what they got. As you can read I am not a fan of building brick and Mortor an an age of technology. Whey do they not have three shifts of school, this would be much better for kids and their parents schedules. Schools districts are all the same spend spend spend, just like their other government counter parts.
ReplyDeleteCorrect me if I'm wrong, but Huff's support for the Super TIF was not unexplained. The school district was to get a one-time payoff for their support. Of course public schools should oppose TIF Districts, but a small part of me hopes they continue to lose these. It would be poetic for the R-VIII to abuse a major disaster to get property taxes raised to the legal maximum, only to continue to lose those higher property taxes due to the votes of the TIF Commission.
ReplyDeletethe developer says it will take a lot of money to develop this property with all of the valleys and low laying areas......and so he didn't look at this property before buying it!!! why do taxpayers have to pay for this??
ReplyDelete