Council--This week's Irony

             Ironic? If you check my Ponzi scheme blog entry after the last city council meeting, you’ll see that Nos. 11 and 12 on the agenda were TIF payments in the amount of $26,395.13 to River Bend and McDermott LLC.

         

            Nos. 11 and 12 must be the magic, ironic numbers. This week the city paid (Nos. 11 & 12) on the agenda (!) $74,000 to two companies. The lion’s share ($70,000) for a community match to Brian Bock for an IEDA (Iowa Economic Development Authority) grant for a downtown housing grant that most of the people in the neighborhood were against. For good reason—lack of parking, fire and snow removal problems building a several homes above the New City Park.

  Not to mention the predictable, incremental effects on drainage in the park, parts of which become unusable in heavy rains. But the people weren’t listened to: the only person who voted against it was Bill Hosch.  Next time it could be your neighborhood.

Pie in the Sky Ponzi Scheme--TIF (Tax Increment Financing)

         Numbers 11 and 12 on last night’s Cascade City Council agenda were to pay Callahan Construction $19,345.60 and McDermott Industrial LLC $7,049.60 in Tax Increment Financing money.

            When I got up and objected to paying very profitable businesses our taxes, the new City Administrator Lisa Kotter launched into a long-winded, inept analogy of pies in a freezer that she thought proved we all have more “pie” from TIF. It that respect, it is a bit of a Ponzi scheme, too—I hadn’t realized!

            TIF is simply identifying an area of the community—usually with businesses in it—and pulling a portion of the taxes away from the normal recipients of those tax $. On the bottom of your tax bill is the list: WD School District 41%, City of Cascade 32%, Dubuque County 21%, NICC, 3% and four others receiving less than a 1%.

            So the schools are the biggest loser here. Of course, the percentage of school funding has gone down every year. In spite of the reality that Iowa schools must provide services for an increasing number of foreign language and service-needy students, i.e. those with autism.

            TIF is simply taxes denied to the regular recipient and turned over to businesses with certain provisos—that they hire a given number of people at a given rate—things they would do anyway if they are running an honest business—a living wage, etc!

            Presumably, everybody in the community loves giving the most well-off people in the community and a couple outside it, $26,494. No wonder we can’t afford a library.

Counting the Blessings of a Sunless Spring

Which, first and foremost, makes me think I am back in Ireland, because daffodils have been in bloom since Easter, and are still going strong.  The tulips will follow on their heels, who knows when, but if this weather persists will bloom all of May.

The one summer I spent in Dublin, a rose in the neighbor’s front yard bloomed all of six weeks. I believe, because the searing sun’s rays never hit its fragile petals. Until then, I never realized how destructive the sun can be.

The magnolia tree outside my library window has been trying to bloom for about as long as the daffodils have been. 

Usually, we have some awful frost, but it is my own fault: planting a magnolia tree in this climate is the purest form of wanting roses in winter, which Shakespeare himself warned against.

While it has been chilly, only the wind, admittedly brutal some days keeps one out of the garden. The peas are up, and in the break between showers yesterday I fenced them from the rabbits. The leeks, cabbage, kohlrabi and other cool season crops are in, so I am counting my blessings.

Also reveling in the pure yellow of the willow trees south and west of the house, which are sometimes, in sunny springs only that brilliant bright yellow for a week in sunny springs.