Mayor Nancolas called into question the land area and cited it at no more than 1.6 square miles or 10% of our fair city as required by Idaho Code. We would offer that the total property taxes collected in Caldwell amount to about $18MM with CEURA taking about $6MM every year right off the top of property taxes to fund all the magical goodies cited by Mayor Nancolas in his state of the city address earlier this month.
The Idaho Press Tribune put a correction notice on the front page stating Mayor Nancolas' issue with our statement about the land area of CEURA. We are offering the above photo of the CEURA map as posted on the CCEDC website. Here's a link to the official map Caldwell Urban Renewal Map . We encourage you to judge for yourself just how much of the city is taken in by CEURA.
We stand by our original statement of about 50% of Caldwell in the urban renweal district. You can use the color legend at the bottom of the officidal map to help in your assessment of who is closest on this estimation of our magical urban renewal district. The goldenrod and green areas of the map are in the urban renewal district of Caldwell.
We would also hope the good people at the IPT will hold Mayor Nancolas to the same standars of backing up his statements with facts. To that end we offer the following from Idaho Code 50-2903(15). It clearly states Urban Renewal Districts can take no more than 10% of the BASE ASSESSED VALUATION in the year the agency is formed:
(15) "Revenue allocation area" means that portion of an urban renewal area or competitively disadvantaged border community area the equalized assessed valuation (as shown by the taxable property assessment rolls) of which the local governing body has determined, on and as a part of an urban renewal plan, is likely to increase as a result of the initiation of an urban renewal project or competitively disadvantaged border community area. The base assessment roll or rolls of revenue allocation area or areas shall not exceed at any time ten percent (10%) of the current assessed valuation of all taxable property within the municipality
Maybe if you sang they would believe you.
ReplyDeleteIt will be hard to get equal time in the Press Tribune because your going against their golden boy and they do everything they can not to print negative information of him and his regime. How can so many people be wrong and their administation be right even with the numbers in front of their noses. I guess that is freedom of the the press to print whatever they wish and turn their backs on facts and figures that prove their boy is not quite truthful with his figures. Welcome to the Nampa Press Tribune.
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ReplyDeleteWe sent the IPT a map of the urban renewal distrcit in Caldwell as well as a copy of Idaho Code 50-2903(15). We asked them to publish the map and the code to let readers decide who was factually correct. They simply will not hold Mayor Nancolas to the same standards they held your humble GUARDIAN in his guest opinion.
We strive to be accurate in what we print and when wrong we point it out and make corrections.
It would be nice if the IPT applied the same standard to the info supplied by Nampa and Caldwell's so called city leaders, that they do to letters to the editor. It seems that any staement made by a city official is published as being absolute fact no matter how far fetched.While letters to the editor are gone over with a very fine tooth comb.But I suppose that's a little too much to hope for.
ReplyDeleteGA says..
ReplyDeleteWhen you buy paper by the train load and ink by the barrel you can make the rules. TV News is simply an oxymoron.
My complaint with the paper and other news outlets is the fact there is little to no investigative reporting done anymore. It wasn't that long ago we could count on some bloodhound reporter for TV or a newspaper to come up with something that captured everyone's attention here in the valley. The same things are going on but nobody is paying attention
Maybe I have missed the point here but how does the map and how much area is in Urban Renewal relate to the assessed valuation of the base assessment of the district. From notes in the UR audit report online on the Caldwell website the base value was approx 60 million. It would appear this whole discussion is moot if the value for the whole city was much over 600 million, both values in 1998.
ReplyDeleteThe short answer is our mayor stated Urban Renewal could not take in more than 10% of the LAND area of our city. The law 50-2903(15) states 10% of the base assessed valueation.
ReplyDeleteUR agencies deliberately use undeveloped farm land that will grow with or without UR to put into UR districts. They can put a lot of vacant land into UR districts this way. The reality today is CEURA now takes 1/3rd of all the property taxes generated in Caldwell to spend as they choose without any voter or elected body oversight. It is TAXATION WITHOUT REPRESENTATION and flies in the face of the Idaho Constitution Article 8 sec.3. on debt.
Maybe we could save a lot of paper and ink if the cities sent the press releases about what a fine job they are doing spending our money directly to us, and then all they would need to publish would be the comics and sports pages. that seems to be the only portion of the IPT worth reading. As both papers continue to shrink I have to wonder how long it will be before one or both are gone.
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