I am Erik Spande and I was the Village President of Winfield from 2013 to 2021.
I’m here to voice my support for Village President candidate Marianne Bruss and her team of trustee candidates Bob Greer, Victor Allen, and Linda Watson. More information on this exciting candidacy can be found at the website 4Winfield.info
I’m here today to tell you what really happened with Tax Increment Finance (TIF) 2.
All you need to do to understand the Village’s motivations for TIF2 is follow the money.
I started the idea of TIF2 in January of 2018, and the deTIF/re-TIF plan was presented to the board in closed session in April 2018. The core idea is this: how can the village profit from all the hard work we’d put into the redevelopment negotiations with CDH? We would do this by forming a TIF, and would allow us to capture 100% of the property tax revenue for 23 years. The normal property tax rate for the village is 4%. Here is the bottom line: $15M dollars was to be spent on building a new village hall. The total projected revenue of the TIF2 is $22 million over 23 years. That’s about 70% of the total available revenue going to fund a new village hall.
It isn’t about economic development. That’s just a side show. It was and always has been about building a village hall.
Normally funding municipal projects with TIF funds is illegal. I got around this inconvenient restriction by getting CDH to agree to purchase the current village hall site for commercial redevelopment. As you may recall, I signed the redevelopment agreement with CDH in late 2020. Then village hall could then be rebuilt within the TIF with TIF money.
In late 2020 I turned against my idea of TIF2, and vowed to block it as long as I was village president. My tenure of village president lasted through May 2021.
SD34 was counting on the increased properly tax funds to build needed infrastructure improvements. They were relieved that they could do this without a tax increase referendum. SD34 was flabbergasted when the Village announced the plans for a brand new 23 year TIF2. They quickly realized that with TIF2 in place they’ll be forced to put a tax increase referendum on the ballot.
In mid 2021 TIF2 was created by Winfield Village President Carl Sorgatz and unanimously approved by his board. After TIF2 was created SD34 immediately sued the village. The TIF2 lawsuit has dragged on for almost 4 years, and has caused a whopping $1.8 legal fees and other expenses. For the record, the village spent about $1.2 million and SD34 spent about $600K.
Now you know the outlines of what is really going on with TIF2.
