24thState

Springfield Is Right To Be Skeptical

When the city of Springfield said it was going to board up the Heer's Building, a downtown building with some history and a growing history of a developer making promises, soaking up tax credits and incentives, and then doing nothing, residents of the city were skeptical.

The city told residents not to worry.

Burris says the city doesn't typically board up a building this big. “We do have a fund to pay for that and we will put a lien against the building that in the future the city will recoup all of its cost,” Burris said.

The cost ended up something like $72,000, and the city officials spent a lot of time and the Springfield News-Leader spent a lot of column inches exclaiming that the money would have to be repaid if the current developer sells the property.

Springfield residents were right to be skeptical.  Witness how those sales actually happen, courtesy the Gateway International Racing track in Illinois just across the river from St. Louis, which happens to be selling:

In a telephone interview, Dover chief executive officer Denis McGlynn said, "I think the table is set now for the property to be revived assuming the property tax issue can be resolved.

"Before, while we were still obligated under leases, for somebody to come in and buy the entity and not be able to buy the property, it creates some hurdles that would have been very difficult to overcome. All of which would have been made worse by the obligation to pay property tax on something you don't own. This cleans all of that up."

The property tax on Gateway, which sits in St. Clair County, was a reported $2.5 million. As of three weeks ago, the landowners had filed a property tax appeal with the county asking for the taxes to be reduced. It is unclear whether the owners were given any breaks.

(As a reminder, the Gateway International Raceway was originally recreated with the "financial support" of the state of Illinois.  Fifteen years ago.)

When it comes down to having an unused, high profile property or forgiving some small--or substantial--tax issue that, to be fair the new owner/developer and his or her henchmen, the promises, never actually incurred, the governments will quite often forgive and forget the money in exchange for the dreams of future revenue and cosmopolitan mixed-use castles.

So the Heer's board-up could very well have been a gift, not a loan.

About That Baseball Game...

It's been pretty funny to see the story flying across the interwebs of the St Louis Tea Party attending a Cardinals game to support the state of Arizona.

A KSDK news crew was down there - I don't know if they were tipped off by the coverage in the Post Dispatch or not, but when I got there, they were interviewing Bill Hennessy, and when they asked if I wanted to be interviewed, I said a few words.

What's funny is that while yes, we were waving Arizona state flags in addition to wearing Cardinal Red and Cardinal gear, the real reason for going was to attend a Cardinal game.  As was noted - the idea actually came from huge Cardinal fan Craig Orlet of the Southern Illinois Tea Party.  They went Monday night, but because of a mix-up, we got tickets for Tuesday night, which we put to good use by putting out the call to friends.

It's been over a year that the St Louis Tea Party has been rallying and working to hold politicians accountable for their decisions.  There's a real camaraderie that has developed among those who have  put so many volunteer hours in.  We hang out together, we eat together - we share in each other's joys and sorrows just like any group of friends.  We poke fun at each other - we have inside jokes, and yes, sometimes we even argue and bicker over petty stuff. 

And while eating some fajitas at Hacienda might not generate the same kind of press as a baseball game, it's based on the same principle.  We like hanging out together.  And while there will always be a little political theater when this group gets together, last night was really about getting out to the ballpark with friends, family, and the kids.

Keep that in mind.  You can't focus on politics all the time.  There are other things in life, including, beer, hotdogs, and drubbing the Diamondbacks on the strength of a 5 RBI outing by Pujols.

Illinois Covered: Illinois Business Smothered

The nice thing about the Post-Dispatch editorials is how predictable they are.  The Illinois governor wants to provide healthcare coverage to everyone who has none, and the answer to how to pay for it is to tax businesses on gross revenue.

See, if you're a business, you can always make more money, right?

There's a lesson in there about a Goose, gold, and some kinds of egg. Mmmm.  I like eggs.

Here's the real problem with this idea.  Businesses that currently pay for health insurance for their workers are fools for continuing to do so in Illinois.  Since the state is now offering to cover the uninsured, you can dump your health care costs on the state, and let your workers fend for themselves with sub-par state medical insurance.  No more double digit insurance increases - no more whining from employees that want to know why they didn't get a raise this year (their answer is the raise came from the health insurance coverage costs).  With the money you save by passing the buck to the state, you can give your employees their salary raises (even though their total compensation is now less).

If you continue to pay for insurance for employees - you're a sucker.  You now have to pay twice - once for your employees, and once for the companies who drop their coverage.

Ameren May Start Disconnecting

If you've been following the politics behind the Ameren rate increases in Southern Illinois, you know that the ability to provide electricity should truly never be left in the hands of politicians.

Electricity was "deregulated" 9 years ago in Illinois, with the promise of a rate freeze, the decoupling of power generators and power distributors, and the convenient idea that keeping rates lows would keep voters happy until another set of politicians had to deal with the problem.

Well, the rate freeze is over, or at least it's scheduled to be over, and Illinois politicians are up in arms because their constituents found out that cheap electricity was not a basic fundamental right, but the result of a company providing a service to make a profit.

I was in California when their power woes made daily headlines, and though the Golden State made a lot of hay about Enron (one wonders what would have happened if Enron hadn't been a convenient scapegoat, the fact was that politicians negotiating prices for power is always a bad idea.