Nampa Republican wants to repeal Idaho’s urban renewal law
By Dustin Hurst February 16, 2012 IDAHO REPORTER ARTICLE
Rep. Robert Schaefer, R-Nampa
While other lawmakers are running legislation to put limits on urban renewal agencies, one lawmaker wants to pass a law completely removing authorization for them.
Rep. Robert Schaefer, R-Nampa, introduced a bill Thursday in the House Local Government Committee that would entirely repeal Idaho’s urban renewal law and require debts incurred by the agencies be retired.
This is the second time Schaefer has pushed a bill like this. He attempted it last year, but the measure didn’t make it out of committee.
The Nampa Republican is pushing the bill to send more money back to school districts, highway agencies and fire departments.
Urban renewal agencies are funded by increases in property taxes, money that would normally go to schools or other government entities if the agencies didn’t exist.
Schaefer said he is introducing the measure to get legislators talking about the problem he believes exists with urban renewal. “I’d like to have this printed so we can have expanded discourse about the real impact of urban renewal,” Schaefer said, adding that he believes urban renewal represents “legalized theft.”
Rep. Elfreda Higgins, D-Garden City, opposed the bill, saying her local urban renewal agency is providing a good service to her community. “In the city I live in, the urban renewal agency has done an absolutely excellent job,” Higgins said, though she acknowledged there have been problems with the entities in other areas of the state.
The measure was introduced with two lawmakers dissenting and will receive a thorough hearing in the next week.
The House Local Government Committee has considered three other bills to limit urban renewal agencies, including one to create elections for entity oversight boards
The above is taken from "THE IDAHO REPORTER" article by Dustin Hurst here's a Link http://www.idahoreporter.com/2012/nampa-republican-wants-to-repeal-idahos-urban-renewal-law/?utm_source=IdahoReporter.com+Update&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=55ded6bb02-RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN
The above is taken from "THE IDAHO REPORTER" article by Dustin Hurst here's a Link http://www.idahoreporter.com/2012/nampa-republican-wants-to-repeal-idahos-urban-renewal-law/?utm_source=IdahoReporter.com+Update&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=55ded6bb02-RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN
About time. Nampa has been going to hell in a handbasket ever since urban renewal has been put into place here. It is an open door to corruption, and it has attracted a new social criminal element to move into our area. Rise up people, get mad, and let us restore Nampa to the good town it used to be.
ReplyDeleteI saw Tom Dale on KIVI News today singing the blues about the stormwater deal. He has known for years this was an EPA issue and now he is talking about enforcement and sanctions from the EPA for non-compliance. He has a hell of a lot of nerve to sit there and pretend ignorance of this issue. We got rid on one bureaucrat and only two more to go along with Mr. Dale.
ReplyDeleteDale is a shining example of incompetence rising to the top..
I couldn't possibly agree more with both of the above anonymous posts. It's time Dale and company update their resumes for another career.
ReplyDeleteWhen a little sewage gets in to the stormwater, what rises to the top?
ReplyDeleteDALE
I would like to hear from Mr. Dale just one more time how that new Tajmahal Police building was built "at no cost to taxpayers".
ReplyDeleteI can't express what I would like to say so I will offer &^%#$%& Poppycock! White, Thorne and Dale need to go sooner, rather than later.
I am curious to see if our "conservative" Idaho legislature can come to the same conclusion that "liberal" California has regarding Urban Renewal and all the pork barrel and stupid spending it spawned. Rep Schaefer gets my thanks for throwing down the guantlet.
ReplyDeleteI spent a lot of time watching, observing, and researching on this so called aka police building that they built. That building looks more like a "fusion center" than it does a police building. Google "fusion center" and read the data.
ReplyDeleteHere's a link to "Fusion Center" on Wikipedia. Have to admit the first I have ever heard the term..
Deletehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fusion_center
Lots of luck getting that done. It will never happen. It is like an exemption, even though the legislature granted they don't have what it takes to remove them....
ReplyDeleteI just read the article on Fusion Centers and it gave me Orwellian Creeps. I want to be safe but when they put people like Ron Paul on their watch lists it sort of crosses the line with Constitutional Rights to Free Speech. I wonder if the occupy Boise people are on their radar.
ReplyDeleteThis whole deal with urban renewal is Orwellian as far as I am concerned. When a people of a community are not allowed to vote on the usual and customary issues, such as the building of new city buildings, and now, new county buildings, and forced into idebtedness, what do you call it? I call it dictatorship. The state will never vote against urban renewal. Look at what they did to those Occupy people. The legislature passed a bill that attacked their 1st amendment rights. Looks to me like there are a lot of dictators in the statehouse. Maybe the best way to attack urban renewal is at the local level. Time for us to get wise and smart to their tactics. Read Larry Grant's article in the IPT today. He had some good opinions.
ReplyDeleteThere was a special Nampa City Council meeting held on Monday afternoon (02-27-12)
ReplyDeleteThe subject was the city’s response to dealing with phosphorus levels in wastewater discharged into Indian Creek.
It appears to me that this 2023 achievement date is suddenly in the “hurry up” mode.
It would allow for massive increases in the “wastewater rate” charges. “Current estimates range from 32 percent to 135 percent over five years, depending on what the council decides." Projected costs for wastewater infrastructure treatment “are only early estimates and range from $63 MM to 99MM”.
The Council is to meet again on March 29, 2012 to discuss what steps it should take next .
This smells a lot like “storm-water-two”. Gearing up to cover 99MM in advance would generate a pile of discretionary funds which would most likely be folded into Nampa's current collective coffers, not unlike the storm water money fiasco.
Nampa leaders have a literal “do nothing immediately" option, (a zero cost option) but also poses “the highest and potentially most expensive long-term risks” (whatever those are.)
I have learned that when Team Tom is quoted as saying, “Most everyone around us is already there. So we’ve got to spend that money to get there”, the decision will be full speed ahead and damn the recessionist torpedoes!! (“There” meaning the reduction of phosphorus levels in discharge water by 97.63 % of current levels: 5.0 milligrams/liter vs. .07 milligrams/liter.)
The operant words here are "we've got to spend that money"!
If this is what I think it is, this is just another borrowed excuse to increase revenue for the current funding needs of Nampa City.
Sure glad that we have a more responsible City Council now than we did with "Stormwater 1". Teflon Tom has to play it pretty cool right now, people are on to his game. He's either going to call it quits or lose in 2013. Either way, I think Tom Dale is history.
Delete