The last time the TIF-funded deal at Montrose and Clarendon reared its ugly not-so-little head was on a sweltering day in June, when everyone involved would have been better off watching the NBA finals.
Well guess what? The foreseeable future is now the past. The deal is back.
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I’d love to tell you Alderman Cappleman’s take on the miraculous revival of this plan, but after I called his office I wound up talking to Tressa Feher, his chief of staff. Apparently the alderman is too busy to take questions from inquiring reporters.
Oh, and one more small thing. In August, Sedgwick brought in a little extra help: former alderman William Banks, who used to chair the City Council’s zoning committee, and Greg Goldner, now CEO of Resolute Consulting, who managed former mayor Richard Daley’s 2003 mayoral campaign and current mayor Rahm Emanuel’s 2002 congressional campaign. Last winter Goldner was also head of a political fund, For a Better Chicago, that funneled nearly half a million dollars into the campaigns of aldermen supportive of Emanuel.
When the city creates a tax increment financing district, it basically freezes the amount of property taxes that the schools, parks, county, and other taxing bodies can collect there for 24 years.
In other words, the schools, parks, and county—all of whom are broke—will be left out of the tax windfall created by building on the largest piece of undeveloped land on the north lakefront.
Feher says this TIF district isn’t really taking money from the schools, parks, and county since the property was off the tax rolls anyway. In other words, you can’t say the taxing bodies will be losing money they never had.
