By Larry Riley in the Muncie Star-Press:
Thursday brings an interesting financial juxtaposition as one agency, of the city of Muncie, prepares to spend millions of new dollars while another agency, namely the county government, convenes in special session to try to cut millions.
The Muncie Redevelopment Commission has its monthly meeting Thursday, and while an actual public hearing on the project isn’t until the following week, a new parking garage in the Village east of Ball State could be broached.
On the same day next week as the MRC hearing will be a hearing by the Muncie Economic Development Commission (one develops, the other redevelops?) to issue $5 million in bonds.
The money raised will be loaned to the Delaware Advancement Corp., a nonprofit that runs the Horizon Convention Center under a long-term deal with the Convention Center Authority, the entity responsible for spending the county’s 1 percent food and beverage tax.
That tax can only go toward operation of the Horizon Center, a facility owned by the Economic Development Income Tax Building Corp. The organizational chart for the whole operation resembles a plate of spaghetti.
But evidently somebody thinks the organization is effective because DAC will build the parking garage, and then MRC’s hearing is to lease the parking garage over the next 22 years at a cost of $600,000 annually.
The money will come from the Tax Increment Financing district created a month ago, incorporating most of the Village and all territory between Riverside and the White River eastward to downtown.
If that revenue isn’t sufficient, MRC can dip into other city TIF districts. Then if that’s not enough, the rest will come “from a pledge of a special tax levied and collected by the Commission on all taxable property within the geographical boundaries of the District.” Presumably all of the city of Muncie. A scary thought.
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See the full article here:
http://www.thestarpress.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2013305010021
