Citizens talk urban renewal

COEUR d'ALENE - Other people's money.

More specifically, taxpayers' money.

With the proposed McEuen Field redevelopment project grabbing headlines in Coeur d'Alene recently, a group of citizens hosted an urban renewal informational meeting Tuesday evening to remind - or inform - community members from where some of that money could be coming.

Property taxes.

That's because Lake City Development Corp., the city's urban renewal agency, is looking at funding some of that project. And urban renewal boards collect their revenues from increment property tax revenues generated inside their districts.

No two ways about it, the group said before 230 people who attended, if LCDC does contribute, it's doing so with tax dollars.

"It's very important that everyone in the community understands what (urban renewal districts) are," said Sharon Culbreth, event organizer. "It's 100 percent your property taxes."

Culbreth, former Coeur d'Alene planning commissioner and Press columnist Mary Souza, retired management consultant and banker Frank Orzell, and District 4 State Rep. Kathy Sims said the more the community gets involved, the more they'll understand the nuances associated with URD spending, and how their property tax dollars are spent.

With an area unemployment rate around 11 percent and 22 empty store fronts on Sherman Avenue by their tally, the board should focus on job creation, not building a park, they said.

LCDC recently said it could have $11.7 million to allocate to future projects inside its Lake District, the district in which McEuen Field sits.

That board isn't elected, rather appointed by the mayor and approved by City Council, and its rules are controlled by the state Legislature.

That's too much oversight for such major financial decisions, Souza said, especially since LCDC now covers 17 percent of the total taxable value of Coeur d'Alene.

"We need jobs," she said. "And to put $30 or $40 million dollars into beautification of a park seems out of touch with reality with real people who need real jobs."

Souza has been in the public eye in recent years speaking against urban renewal and city spending. Transparency and fiscal conservatism are two prevalent topics. The group said that urban renewal increases property taxes for the whole county since that money is diverted from the county's 48 taxing entities.

Proponents of urban renewal, including LCDC executive director Tony Berns in a recent email to The Press, say URAs increase valuation outside their districts as well as inside their districts, thereby offsetting any revenues the agency collects.

Berns pointed to Gozzer Ranch Development, Black Rock Development and Hagadone Terraces in the email that all developed outside the district since LCDC's 1997 inception - $438 million in valuation.

But opponents said Tuesday county residents still have to make up for funding services with the diverted property taxes. Close a district after it completes its mission, and the money goes back to the taxing entities.

County Assessor Mike McDowell said Tuesday before the meeting that 7 percent of net taxable value in Kootenai County is inside urban renewal districts. Take all those away hypothetically, while all taxing entities keep their budgets unchanged, then the levy rate would drop that 7 percent.

The problem with that equation is it's hypothetical, he said.

"It's a difficult thing to talk about because that circumstance will never occur," he said. "In my 30 some years I've never seen that happen."

Sims, meanwhile, helped successfully pass new legislation requiring an election for a municipality to create a URD. It's a positive step to implementing more oversight to the boards, she said.

"We did make some progress," she said, preferring that large-scale URD spending be a two-thirds super majority vote like other bond government spending. "I'm trying to fix this problem of taxation without representation, which is exactly what it is."

Berns, in the email, and other proponents have said URDs are vital to spur economic development, which voting like bonding issues would slow to a standstill.

The two sides have been split in Idaho for a while, and the topic is often debated not only at the local level but at the state level too.

Back to McEuen Field, Souza said she's going to ask the City Council members who might have possible conflict of interest issues at hand to recuse themselves from the decision-making process for the park.

Those include officials who own property by McEuen Field, including Mayor Sandi Bloem, who has commercial property near Fourth Street and Sherman Avenue, as well as City Council members Al Hassell and Deanna Goodlander since they serve on both the council and LCDC.

City Councilman Mike Kennedy will also be asked to recuse himself, Souza said, since Kennedy is the president of Intermax Network. Intermax partner Steve Meyer is business partners with former LCDC board member Charlie Nipp in a different business, and Nipp owns property on Front Avenue near the park.

"I have no financial connection to that at all," Kennedy said in a phone interview Tuesday evening. "That has no connection to property owners down by the park or anything else so I welcome the discussion. I've not had a discussion with Steve about McEuen Park ever. Frankly it's really a non-issue. I have no financial stake in that all."

He called Souza's approach "innuendo and smear tactics," that the former planning commissioner uses to influence November elections.

"That's what she does," he said.

Souza said they aren't conspiracy theories, but a request to point out possible influences based on relationships.

Bloem's family has owned the building for 98 years. She could not be reached Tuesday afternoon, but Kennedy called it a conspiracy theory that's "preposterous" centered around a building nearly 100 years in family ownership and a possible park design.

Carroll Carey and Jean-Claude Flabel, wife and husband who attended Tuesday's meeting, said they were interested to see where the topic of McEuen Field and URA spending would go, maybe leading to a public vote for the park plan, something Carey said she doesn't want to rule out.

"I'm now motivated to see where all this goes," Flabel said.