RENEWAL: Call for action

Idaho Legislative Leadership, concerning the incomplete work of the 2015 Urban Renewal Interim Committee:

The recent published survey “Idaho 2020” (research by Stanford University) that was presented to the legislature by the Gardner Co. of Salt Lake City appears to have stalled the presentation of the bill produced by Co-chairs Rep. Youngblood and Sen. Johnson’s Urban Renewal Interim Committee. At this late date it is highly unlikely that if the bill is printed there will be adequate time for presentation and passage, effectively blocking any correction of Urban Renewal this year.

As the ad-hoc urban renewal legislative committee was formed in the 2015 session with the intent to provide more effective less tax abusive development tools to Idaho municipalities, not completing the mission during the 2016 session will lose two years of time and effort.

The suggestions of Idaho 2020, belying the strategic outcome-designed questions, is not a bad idea if it can be controlled with input from the private sector, the municipalities, taxpayers committees, and groups like the Idaho Freedom Foundation. Idaho does need to repeal the archaic acts and provide taxpayer friendly, better development tools to the municipalities for strong economic growth.

The four existing statutory acts I refer to are, urban renewal title 50 chapter 20, community development title 50 chapter 29, industrial development title 50 chapter 27 and the intermodal act title 70 chapter 22. They were developed with good intent, but are duplicitous and in the case of urban renewal, the 1965 act is archaic and broadly written, allowing rampant abuse by the municipalities that has indebted Idaho tax payers with millions of dollars ($583million by 2014) which for the most part are wasted on whims of the urban renewal boards. I stand ready to point out the abuses if questioned, but will not belabor the point at this time.

I am requesting that the leadership consider creating a fund to provide a public review of the above four acts, with the intent to modernize and provide legislation, that will bring Idaho into a competitive position with the conterminous lower 48 states in the 21st century. To achieve this objective I would propose that the public review group be composed of individuals fully knowledgeable of the four Acts and the problems therein, with attorneys from the Idaho AG, the Municipalities, the Tax Accountability Committee of Idaho, the Idaho Freedom Foundation and the Redevelopment Association of Idaho. This will be an intensive work, and frankly, attempting to amend the present statutes before the house and senate would require a learning curve exceeding the knowledge of most legislators and many years.

The time is right to take on this project. The legislature is besieged every year with legislation attempting to correct the problems with Urban Renewal and lacking effective financial development tools, Idaho is left in a non-competitive position with the other states.

RONALD M. HARRIMAN

Chairman, Tax Accountability

Committee of Idaho