What Can You Do About The Proposed Richmond IL TIF District?

Nothing! Yes, that's right! Ultimately Illinois state law allows your local officials to, by following a time line with certain procedures, to put a TIF into effect anywhere they vote to do so. Its a special right that was given to them when a majority of you voters put them in office. There are opportunities for the public to comment, but there is no public vote, and the municipality does not even have to consider any of your objections. We can only hope providing information may change the course they are currently on.

This is some of what we did:

Collected TIF related information from the internet and assembled it here.

We mailed selected TIF articles, documents and studies we found, individually to all village board members at home, 2 mailings a week, over the period of a couple of months. If they haven't already been sold on the idea of TIF, we hoped that information would arm them with plenty of questions for the consultant.

We didn't mail any of TIF information that concerns the schools to Village board members. There are enough problems with TIF without bringing up the schools.

We mailed all TIF related school information to your school board members at their homes and mailed to the school boards at their official address as well. We did not try to influence the school board members, just let them know we were concerned and that this was some information we thought they may be interested in reviewing. The school boards recognized that the TIF will cause financial difficulty for them, they will decide what they need to do.

It is entirely possible that if your school district is doing well financially or if the area to be TIFed is a bombed out shell, and the schools aren't getting much revenue from it right now anyway the school board might overlook the money they wouldn't be getting for 23 Years, in favor of having a more attractive situation in their community,

Chicago Tribune, Parade magazine

Will the Government Take Your Home? 8/06/06

At the end of this article are some suggestions on what you can do.

Castle Coalition

Eminent Domain Abuse Survival Guide

Neighborhood Capital Budget Group

Take action; Organizing in your TIF

Let Those Elected Know What You Think

Write or e-mail your State Senator and Representative, there is pending legislation that could significantly effect the eminent domain rights of municipalities. Tell them you are concerned that the current TIF laws give municipalities too much power and ask why the law doesn't allow for more public participation. E-mail them a link to a document or study that you feel they should read.

The McHenry County Defenders has a page of contact information that you may find useful.

Chicago Regional Council of Carpenters This page is an incredible resource to anyone in the tri-state area ( IA, IL, WI ) interested in contacting the elected officials of your area or sending a letter to the editor(s) of a large collection of newspapers (250) via e-mail. They also give tips on how to write an effective letter to both. Get noticed! Get published!

Let Those Locally Elected Know What You Think

Communicate with your local village officials, but keep in mind that they have already been lobbied by developers and TIF consultants on what a great thing the TIF could be for their area, they will have answers for you, but you will be guided, just as they were, to what a good idea TIF is. We can only hope that through this web site and by doing your own searches you have been educated to what kind of enhanced eminent domain rights a TIF district will give your municipal officials.

Ask yourself this question, "Can you trust your local politicians with that kind of power?"

Detect False Promises!