Tuesday, November 27, 2007
MDDP
The Morris Downtown Development Partnership is advertising an opening for a new executive director. This organization is funded primarily from tax dollars from the city of Morris. It's budget is spent largely on administrative expenses, including the director's salary. This is an ideal time to reconsider the usefulness of the MDDP, and whether continuing to fund this organization is the best use for our tax dollars.
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26 comments:
Easy Sledge, Skeptical would say you are messing with the power brokers. God forbid you do that.
It's a part time position...bet you didn't know that.
The obvious solution to the city hall problem is to leave the police department in the existing building and move the city hall staff to a new location. A modest office building could be constructed at the corner of Jefferson and Wauponsee, on the property the the city purchased for this very reason.
How much are we talking about exactly, tax dollars that is, are headed to MDDP?
The Treasurer's Report published in the MDH shows payments by the city of Morris to the MDDP of $52,500 last fiscal year.
Why can't the city show some fiscal responsibility like Seneca did. There is nothing wrong with a steel pole barn for a city hall. And what's more...you can save the millions of dollars to freshen up the lobby with a nice candle.
Maybe the Peacock-McFarland law firm can fund the MDDP out of the large payment McFarland receives when the city uses TIF funds to buy his old Firehouse restaurant property...and the P-M firm gets all the money from handling the real estate transaction/closing.
Gardner residents hold onto your wallets! Your property taxes will skyrocket after TIF is approved, just like they did in Morris.
Belt is licking his chops
With all due respect, I think the city of Morris has bigger fish to fry when it comes to the use of tax money.
The MDDP isn't a huge drain on the economy and downtown businesses benefit from their existence.
Gardner leaders (Flapper the biggest) doesn't care that his schools are broke. He probably is making promises with the TIF just like he did when he screwed all the Union workers at Caterpillar Joliet. The bigger the smile, the sharper the knife. Remember that when you talk to old Dickie. He will probably want to start GDDP for Gardner, with a fat payroll that he will be on.
Eliminating funding for MDDP would pay the salary of a patrolman, or buy two squad cars, or pay for a month and a half of Scooter's bills.
4:31, finally someone that understands the value of a dollar.
Now that Baums is closed i see no reason to keep this group afloat.
Yeh 9:00, those little green and white sandwich board signs really draw in the business. Well worth $50,000.
City should already own the firehouse bldg. Didn't they default on the CDAP loan the city gave them?
If the city council members were spending their own money, they would spend it foolish things like the MDDP.
The MDDP was the brainchild of Jim Baum. The orginal plan was to create a Special Service Area whereby downtown property owners would pay an additional assessment on their tax bills to fund the MDDP. Baum's secretary was hand-picked to be the director. Nifty way to have the city pay your secretary's salary. Anyway, there was such an uproar from downtown businesses and property owners that the city abandoned the notion of the SSA, but still funded the MDDP from general property taxes. So now everyone pays in the form of higher taxes.
What really needs to be looked into is the city's relationship with a company called Minority Development Company. The city rebates hundreds of thousands of dollars a year to this company for sales tax. The company apparently claims to make millions of dollars in new car sales from a tiny, one-room office in the Franklin building. Bet you never noticed all those cars passing through there.
Minority Development Company is listed in "goodstanding" with the Illinois Sec. of State and is a domestic LLC. The agent name is Lee A Arbus with an address in Northbrook Illinois. Is this the same that the city is giving all this money back to? Please let us know who is Minority Development Company. Is it someone from Morris? Is it another one of Hynds' ghost corporations to suck money from our town all while acting like a philanthropist on the outside? Is it some paltry investment group of Scooter, the State's Atty and the Judge owning buildings like the Baum building downtown? I'm confused about this & my source at city hall isn't talking to me anymore.
From the 11/21/07 Morris Daily Herald (http://www.morrisdailyherald.com/articles/2007/11/21/news/680bcity.txt):
"For the year ending April 30, 2007, the city received $4.7 million in sales taxes, but returned $1 million to Ritchie Brothers, Bell Fuels and Minority Development under prior agreements."
Who is this company and why are they getting all this sales tax returned to them?
Sledge, Scooter is still pushing his ridiculous notion that the Open Meetings Act bars aldermen from speaking at committee meetings. This time Scooter shushed Don Hansen. Scooter's position has been thoroughly debunked, and the aldermen know that it is incorrect. (Scooter never does explain why the Open Meetings Act does not also bar the mayor from speaking!).
There are two possible explanations: either Scooter doesn't know the law, or he is purposely misinterpreting the law to squelch opposing views. Take your pick. Scooter threw away a lot of credibility with this one.
Some of the aldermen have obtained an outside legal opinion that contradicts Belt's interpretation of the Open Meetings Act. You are right that Belt has lost credibility with many of the aldermen because of this.
If a councilman had any guts he would simply demand that Scooter's opinion be placed in writing with his signature. First he would refuse, second he would claim the councilman cannot demand a written opinion, third he would demean the councilman for challenging him, fourth he would gloat that he brow beat another sucker. Then if the councilman had any guts he would send a letter to the Illinois licensing review committee for lawyers describing the episode. Things will then change so his name does not get blackened.
Surprising that Scooter would silence Hansen, since Hansen basically speaks for the Mayor.
New Executive Director has been hired? Thoughts? I know MDDP reads this.
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