Wise list members, I'm wondering if perhaps anyone can give a rookie like me some insight on researching TIF, or point me in the right direction. I've struggled to get my brain around this for quite a while, so I'd love to get a hold of some kind of TIF fact sheet, if one exists. Something summarizing the history of TIF, figures on how extensively its been used, step by step how the process works, and what does the future hold for TIF?
I've only been following this discussion list for about a year now, and never before had any interest in this sort of thing. People seem to have very polarized opinions on TIF, especially concerning the "but for" part. Terrell Brown claims that, "the TIF designation keeps money from going into the general fund (plus to the school district, Hennepin County, etc.) until the TIF bonds are paid off 20 or 30 years from now". Carol Becker's response makes TIF sound like magic. "The tax base is no worse off because there would be no TIF money without doing the TIF project that creates the money." Its hard to imagine that simply doing a project creates money. If that were the case, why not do TIF projects all over the place and make us all rich? However, her point is well taken, if the project would never have happened without TIF, then there is really no loss to the general fund. So how do I get more facts on TIF and less opinion? Thanks for all your help, Conor Donnelly WAITEPARK T29 R24 S1 P.S. A little off MPLS topic but, is the Best Buy project in Richfield a TIF thing? _______________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - A Civil City Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe, Unsubscribe, Digest option, and more: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
