The Salem City Council approved tax increment financing district agreements for two developments over the concerns of Salem Community High School Superintendent Dr. Brad Detering that the location of the TIF district has not been determined.
The agreements are for a new subdivision being developed by Micah Mulvaney and Marion and Lake Streets and new commercial development by Glen Henderson of Salem Tire on his property at West Main and I-57.
Detering questioned if the city was getting ahead of itself in pursuing agreements.
“There is just a little bit of concern, even questions that even your TIF consultants don’t know if that property with those other properties can even be lumped into the same TIF. That was brought up at the December 19 TIF joint review meeting. They did not know at that time. They were going to get more information on that. I have not seen new information on that, so I’m not even sure that all those properties can be put into the same TIF.”
Detering emphasized he didn’t have issues with any of the proposed projects themselves.
Economic Development Director Leah Delicarpini said she understood the concern.
“I agree with Dr. Detering that we probably want to use it sparingly, and I don’t see anything on the horizon right now that we probably want to do this for,” Delicarpini said. “I think we’re waiting on the due diligence to be done on TIF 4 where we have a pretty finalized boundary. All that is going on right now, and then I will go and talk to the taxing bodies, and we’ll do public comment and all those other steps once we have a pretty clear boundary of what all is included in the TIF.”
Delicarpini says the footprint of the TIF District will likely be large to include all the property the city would like to see developed, but existing structures can be removed.
“Rather than keep that increment in the TIF fund every year, we disperse that back out to the tax base, so no harm is done to them. They don’t lose taxing dollars off of those preexisting buildings in those properties.”
City Attorney Matt Wilzbach said the agreements would not obligate the city if the TIF is not completed or does not include the earmarked property.
Mayor Nic Farley feels the agreement show good intent from the city on projects they wanted to see completed. The rest of the council appeared to agree in voting for the resolutions.
