Sanford Hospital

A TIF for a private restaurant that serves alcohol? Hmm . . .

So I stumbled upon item #42 at the city council meeting Tuesday night. They were amending the Sanford Sports Complex Development to include a full service restaurant (Document: snford). I was told this was coming, but am curious why this wasn’t included in the original plans. And of course, councilor Entenman excused himself from the vote without explaining why (as usual). He sits on the Sanford board of directors. Kenny Anderson asked if Sanford was going to sell the property to a private company for the restaurant. Director Cooper did not have an answer but the Sanford rep came up to answer the question. His response (paraphrasing), “Not sure, this area is still developing.”

So let me get this straight, you are asking for an amendment to have a full-service restaurant in the development, BUT you are not sure what that restaurant will be . . . yeah, sure, you betcha.

PROPOSED REGULATIONS/STANDARDS:

C. SUBAREA A.

It is the intent of Subarea A to be a planned medical/sports complex area including

the support services for the complex.

1. USES PERMITTED. A building or premises shall be permitted to be used for the

following purposes:

Recreational Complex

Office

Medical Office

Medical School

Medical Research

Medical Manufacturing

Day Care Center

Hotel/Motel

Full-Service Restaurant

Commercial Parking Lot or Parking Ramp

Communications Equipment

Warehouse

Retail

Retail Warehouse

Heliport

On-Sale Alcohol Establishment

Off-Sale

 

Watch this video, what’s missing?

(Image: KELO-TV)

After watching this Stormland TV story, I couldn’t help noticing that something was missing. Can you guess what it was? NO MENTION OF PUBLIC MONEY potentially being funneled into these projects. Not even a peep or an inkling.

No mention of the money the city already gave Jr. Football (they have yet to contribute all of what they promised). No mention of the millions in TIF money Sanford is getting for this complex. No mention of the money the mayor is promising Ice Hockey and the Tennis association.

Notta. Nuthin. Zilch.

Sanford will walk away with all the credit while the taxpayers get left holding the bag of burning dog poo.

And people say our local media isn’t puppets for the city. LMAO!

The Precedent of the Sanford Sports Complex TIF

COMPLETE DOCUMENT: sanford-TIF

Pay close attention to this map that shows where the improvements will occur.

Historically the city has not utilized a TIF to pay for infrastructure costs associated solely with private development (i.e. it doesn’t clearly meet the definition of being public).  With this TIF however that isn’t the case.  The very southwest corner of the development is very private in nature and will include retail and commercial development.  What is the true need for the TIF to cover the costs of this infrastructure and how is this retail / commercial development any different than those elsewhere throughout the City?

By allowing this the City has truly set a precedent for developer requests in the future.

Utilizing this incentive when it is clearly needed is a good thing for the city and the parties involved.  By utilizing it for a project that does not need it – it then becomes an entitlement.  That is a slippery slope to go down and jeopardizes the relationship the City has built in the past with the County and School District (other taxing entities that are impacted by the TIF being established).

What is missing is the development agreement between the City and Sanford for the reimbursement of the increment identified in the plan. The Economic Development department may not have the document completed yet. It may not be completed yet because of the several negotiations that have to be held yet.

This document will outline who is paid for what and when.

Let’s estimate there is $9M in increment with approximately $500K coming in annually.

• Should Sanford be paid for what they have done first or should the City be paid for the project they have completed?

• Can that be split so that both get something without one having to wait 5 years before seeing anything?

• Given the fact that the NEED was not justified, one would think that the City could be reimbursed first for the work that will be completed to the Sports Complex.

This has been a point of contention with the project, maybe that is why the document hasn’t been completed yet. It will be a public document so we will wait and see.

What is the public allowed to know when it comes to naming rights for the new events center?

Ellis wrote a great column yesterday in the non-free online newspaper about the secrecy surrounding the EC’s naming rights.

So let me get this straight;

• The public was not allowed to pick the location

• The public was not allowed to pick the financing plan

• And now the public isn’t allowed to be a part of the naming rights

What if the corporation chosen is unpopular with the public, even if they give much more then other bidders? Sometimes the highest bidder isn’t always the best. Do we want a subprime credit card company’s name on the side of our events center? Or the name of the founder of that company?

I agree with Ellis, we should be told something, heck, anything. Either the list of companies bidding, or a ballpark figure of what the city is expecting for revenue for the naming rights. Or better yet, both. I think if we made the bids public, we actually might see a bidding war take place which would help us garner even more money.

But hey who am I to question our mayor, Mr. Transparency himself.

STAGGERS & HUETHER

On a different note, several people have asked me what I think the working relationship will be between the mayor and councilor Staggers. I have not spoken to Kermit or Mike about this matter. Believe it or not, you may see them join forces on a whole host of things. They both want the EC to be profitable. They both are proponents of testing snow gates. They both want to see infrastructure projects moving at a fast pace. We all may be surprised how much these two have in common. Don’t get me wrong though, there will be battles. Kermit is big on demanding information from city hall before he makes a decision on the council. You may see an all out cage match between Kermit and Darrin Smith (they never got along much on the council).

I will end by saying something Kermit stated the other day on the ‘100 Eyes‘ show when asked about taking things personal. “I don’t take anything personal when there are disputes . . . if someone has a personal issue with me, that’s not my problem, that’s theirs.”

Amen to that.