Lincoln Place in downtown Loveland will satisfy the $1 million bond debts its URA (Urban Renewal Authority) took out some 11 years ago in the middle of 2013. The debt was used to finance the public sidewalks surrounding the project.
This means the approximately $150,000 diverted annually from current property taxes generated by Lincoln Place to pay the URA bond debt will instead be free to flow directly into county and school district coffers beginning in 2013.
Not so fast — Loveland has a scheme to prevent some $2.1 million ($150,000 over the next 14 years) from being repatriated to the county and schools. Loveland city staff have proposed borrowing money for the museum expansion while using the Lincoln Place tax revenues generated by the “TIF” to payback the loan by including the city owned museum property (both old and newly acquired) by placing the museum into the lucrative Lincoln Place URA. see our full story
The City of Loveland pays no property taxes as it is a local government. Therefore, taking city owned property from one sluggish URA (downtown Loveland) and adding it to another more lucrative URA (Lincoln Place) so you can borrow more public money for a development that can never repay the debt while extending a property tax diversion for purposes unrelated to the URA’s original intent is simply unethical.
If Larimer County and the Thompson School District want voters to either extend or raise their sales or property tax revenues at the ballot box than they need to do more to protect their revenue sources. We are not sure if it is a lack of political will, education or simply poor time management that causes those impacted most by clever URA shell games to never speak out and defend their interest.
How can anyone support raising the mill levy for the Thompson School District, for example, when they gave McWhinney millions in future revenue and refuse to defend their current anticipated property tax revenues from such unethical schemes as this latest one?
