This week, both the TribLocal and the Park Ridge Journal published articles about the City Council’s discussion of Park Ridge’s Uptown TIF at this past Monday night’s Committee of the Whole meeting: “City Staff Reworking TIF To End Deficits,” (Journal, 07.24.13) and “Park Ridge hopes to reduce TIF drain” (Trib, 07.25.13).

At that meeting, City Finance Director Kent Oliven reiterated that the Uptown TIF fund – the special enterprise fund created to operate the TIF district – has already “borrowed” more than $5 million from the City.  Oliven also reiterated the findings of TIF consultant Kane McKenna and Associates, Inc. that, by the expiration of the TIF in 2027, the TIF fund is projected to owe the City over $20 million.

That’s not the kind of return one would hope for on the City’s approximately $40 million TIF “investment.”

It’s also one big reason why Moody’s downgraded the City’s bond rating in January 2012, while also assigning a negative outlook to the City’s finances.  And it’s got the City scrambling to salvage whatever it can from this long-term mess, using some of the ideas and advice given the Council several months ago by Kane McKenna.

For example, one way to put more TIF district tax revenue in the TIF fund is to segregate TIF district property that has gained in value from the property which hasn’t.  But that reportedly will take TIF revenue away from other taxing bodies, like School Districts 64 and 207, and the Park Ridge Recreation and Park District.  We suspect those taxing bodies might have something to say about that effort, even though they – and especially D-64 – were complicit in the creation of the TIF back in September 2003.

Back then, because D-64 had the most to lose from the TIF’s diversion of property tax revenues, the D-64 Board went through the effort and expense of hiring a top-notch Loop TIF attorney, John Murphey., He repeatedly advised then-D-64 Board members Joe Baldi, Rich Brendza, Ares Dalianis, Christine Heyde, Dean Krone, Steve Latreille and Sue Runyon that the land in question did not legally qualify for “TIF” status because it could be developed without a TIF; and that D-64 would likely be successful if it sued the City to stop the TIF.

For reasons that were vague even back then and virtually impenetrable today, however, the D-64 Board wimped out and cut a less-than-optimal financial deal with the City that the City reportedly will be looking to renegotiate now that the TIF has become an economic black hole.

Which illustrates, painfully, one of the biggest problems with government generally, but especially local government here in Park Ridge.

Lack of accountability of public officials for the decisions they make.

Less than 10 years after the foolish TIF-related decisions were made, not one of the elected City officials who made those decisions, or either of the two key City staffers who facilitated them – mayors Ron Wietecha and Mike Marous; alds. Mike Tinaglia, Don Crampton, Rich DiPietro, John Benka, Sue Bell, Andrea Bateman, Sue Beaumont, Howard Frimark, Dawn Disher, Mark Anderson, Rex Parker, Larry Friel and Jeff Cox; and city mgr. Tim Schuenke and finance director Diane Lembesis – remain in elective City office or City employment.

That leaves current Mayor Dave Schmidt and Alds. Joe Sweeney, Nick Milissis, Jim Smith, Roger Shubert, Dan Knight, Marc Mazzuca and Marty Maloney – along with City Mgr. Shawn Hamilton and City Finance Director Kent Oliven – to come up with desperate after-the-fact solutions to borderline-impossible problems created by the departed perpetrators of this TIF debacle.

Not only don’t those perps have to clean up their own mess, but we suspect they are delighted whenever they read superficial alibis for the TIF’s failure, like the TribLocal’s “a weakened economy and soft real estate market,” which gloss over how the $20 million-plus, bond-financed subsidy the City gave TIF developer PRC Partners, LLC was the product of fundamentally boneheaded public policy.  Or that, as we understand it, the servicing of that $20 million of bonded debt contributes mightily to the annual deficiency in the TIF fund.

That’s a “gift” from the perps that will keep on giving for years to come.

Giveaways of public money for private benefit are what properly have been dubbed “crapitalism.”  Unfortunately, it appears to be on the rise nationwide.  And irrespective of whether that crapitalism occurs at the federal, state, or local level, the politicians who make it possible and the recipients who crapitalize on it always seem to make out like the bandits they are.

While the rest of us taxpayers get stuck with the bill.

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