2009 Worst Timing Award: Craig Hullinger

I like Craig, so nothing against him personally. But has he read the paper lately? I have a hard time believing he has when I hear news reports like this one from 1470 WMBD:

Peoria School District 150 is being asked to participate in an Enterprise Zone to allow a developer to construct a combination of retail space and housing units along Main Street. Devonshire Group plans to build Main Street Commons at the site of the former Walgreen’s at Main and Bourland…. If District 150 goes along the developers will pay property taxes on only the current value of the property for five years…. City of Peoria Economic Development Director Craig Hullinger says District 150’s participation is vital to the project moving forward.

Dude! District 150 is LOSING MONEY! They’re in terrible, terrible debt. They’re closing schools. They’re laying off teachers. They’re raising class sizes. They’re getting ready to issue $38 million in 15-year bonds to pay off short term debts and make payroll. And… AND —

I have here the 2008 Tax Computation Report on District 150 that just came out a few weeks ago. Would you like to know how much property tax revenue District 150 is not receiving because of tax increment financing (TIF) districts? $3,027,801.91. And the City has already put the new Marriott Hotel in a TIF, so District 150 won’t see any benefit from that development. And the museum is in a TIF, so the district won’t see any benefit from that development. And now that a developer comes to Main street, the City says, “Hey, District 150, would you mind doing without a little more tax revenue for just a little bit longer?” Five years, that is… unless they extend it.

This couldn’t have been suggested at a worse time. And the really crazy part? Check out the quote from the developer about this project:

Shawn Luesse of the Devonshire Group told the District 150 school board Monday the project is targeting Bradley University students. “Our feasibility study shows there’s a housing need for Bradley students,” Luesse said. “We would virtually be full overnight.”

Wait a minute…. If it’s going to be this successful, explain to me why they need this tax incentive to make it happen. Is it just because everybody else gets incentives, so now we’ve trained our developers to have an entitlement mentality?

Remember the good old days when we only worried about Cat leaving Peoria?

Now we have to worry about Caterpillar leaving the country, evidently. Check out Congressman Aaron Schock’s interview on Neil Cavuto’s show:

Or, if you don’t want to watch the whole thing, here are the comments that concern me:

SCHOCK: What this bill will do is only speed up foreign competitors buying U.S. corporations. If the President likes Fiat owning Chrysler, and so many of these other foreign competitors gobbling up their U.S. competition because it makes more sense for them to be foreign companies. For the sake of Caterpillar, they only sell 30% of their goods here in our country. If they’re going to be double-taxed on the other 70%, why fly the American flag? […]

CAVUTO: Do you think Caterpillar’s going to bolt?

SCHOCK: I hope that companies like Caterpillar and their brothers and sisters like them around the country will help educate their members of Congress, will help educate their shareholders, and more importantly their employees of the devastating effect of the President’s tax policy, and that members of Congress will hear their phones ring, and ultimately we can kill it.

In other words, Cat should warn everyone that if the President’s tax policy passes, then Cat may leave the U.S. and become a foreign company. Personally, I’m not worried. Peorians ensured that Cat has “drive[n] deep stakes in this community” by passing that museum tax. Cat wouldn’t leave now that we’ve proven our love for them.