I've been following City Council for a few years now, and have often played "How would I vote?". It's given me a consistent local governance philosophy -- one that I can reasonably justify. Last Monday night, I accidentally went against that philosophy. My vote didn't change the outcome (it would've passed anyway), but I missed a great opportunity to communicate my stance to city staff and public. I'm sorry for my mistake, and will explain what happened and what actions I'm taking for the future.
Here's what happened:
Up for vote was this agenda item; it passed by a 6-1 vote (with me as a Yes):
2.r. Resolution approving the University Avenue/Highway 58 Interchange Reconstruction Project in the Cedar Falls Unified Highway 58 Corridor Urban Renewal Area.
As I worked my way through the council packet this weekend, I read through the city staff memo about the costs and particulars of the project, but I glossed over the subject line, that it was a Tax Increment Fund (or TIF) project. And TIF wasn't directly mentioned in the resolution. If I had caught that it was TIF, I would have dug deeper into what kinds of projects are allowed to be financed by those TIF funds (because you can only spend TIF money in the specific area included in the TIF area). In this case, the area included is the Northern & Southern Industrial Park and the ribbon of Highway 58 that connects them.
Here's what I did wrong:
By missing out on the fact that the $3.5M expenditure was fully TIF-UD funded, I voted in favor of the expenditure. But as I've been reading through the background on the creation of that TIF district, it's plain as day to me that the combined district -- and generated funds -- were intended to solely cover projects within those two industrial parks...not to fund the city's additional projects which happen to occur in that ribbon between the industrial parks. As I understand it, the TIF money is generated in the TIF area, and must be spent to improve those areas. I'm particularly interested in seeing the Northern Industrial Park developed, in order to help grow out North Cedar.
What I'll do differently:
- I'm going to be much more careful about items dealing with TIF funding, and with the methods that city seeks to pay for its projects. I'll also respectfully and persistently work to change the rest of City Council to change their thinking on how TIF funding should be used -- especially in the Unified District, where practically any project in that 58 ribbon could be legally (but wrongly) funded with the TIF.
- That said, I can rationalize the $11M in TIF money being spent on Viking/58 interchange as having a direct benefit to the Industrial Parks, because of better traffic flow-through and safety...that this project is really "IN" the Southern Industrial Park. The University Avenue interchange definitely isn't.
- I'll spend more time researching TIF history, pros and cons. Since I believe we're using TIF money inappropriately, it's going to be a higher priority in my list of topics to understand really well --- especially since I want to influence others on how we use it.
- I'll seek out relationships with like-minded TIF thinkers, in order to be in the best position to catch and evaluate cases like this where TIF money is (in my opinion) being inappropriately used. And also to stay open-minded and skeptical of my own positions, to make sure my thinking makes sense.
- I've written an issue statement so that stakeholders can be clear of where I stand on TIF-UD funding.
The takeaway from all this....
I don't want to surprise anyone with my voting; for the sake of good governance and healthy community development, your council representatives should be transparent, consistent and (ideally) predictable. So I'm explaining what happened to help correct a false perception that, with the Monday vote, I support TIF funding all along the corridor, when I really don't. Thanks for reading this all the way through, and as always, please let me know if I seem to be missing some key information or would benefit from hearing your informed perspective. I can't promise to be perfect, but I am teachable and do my best to learn and adapt!