The city's Redevelopment Commission was wrong to commit $200,000 to INVin, which it did at the organization's Dec. 17, 2015 meeting.
There is growing criticism of redevelopment commissions throughout the state — and even the country — with doubts raised as to whether, in fact, the projects they undertake actually do create jobs and generate development.
Evidence suggests that, against the conventional wisdom and contrary to the story being told, communities quite possibly would have fared better without resort to redevelopment commissions and establishment of Tax Increment Finance districts, which siphon tax dollars away from public schools and libraries as well as city governments themselves.
There may be something to that criticism.
Locally, there have been recent examples of the RDC getting a little off course with how it allocates the tax dollars within its coffers — and to their credit, members of the commission have questioned whether these requests met with the organization's mission.
State law treats what redevelopment commissions can do with TIF dollars in much the same manner as it does in stipulating how local governments can spend Economic Development Income Tax revenues — that is to say, in a truly loosey-goosey fashion.
Indeed, the statute even states that the law “shall be liberally construed.”
So basically, under the law, TIF dollars can be spent in however a way those in charge so choose to spend them.
There is a difference — an important difference — between EDIT and TIF dollars: with the former, elected officials are in charge, with the latter, appointees.
If the public doesn't agree with how EDIT dollars are spent, they can at the next election avail themselves of the opportunity to vote in new officeholders.
The public can attend an RDC meeting and, perhaps, even be granted time to express disapproval of a proposed action, but that's it; RDC members don't appear on any ballot and serve at the pleasure (or whim) of the mayor (who appoints three of the five members) or the council (which appoints the other two).
We are not being critical of current RDC members, who are fine, civic-minded people with a high regard for their community.
But when it comes to spending the public's money, there must be true public accountability, and the surest way in which such accountability can be attained is through the ballot box.
Which brings us to the $200,000 for INVin.
RDC members succeeded in making a bad situation just a little bit better by not giving INVin a lump-sum payment with no strings attached; money will be parceled out on a project-by-project basis over the next couple of years.
There's a right way to spend public money, and this agreement between the RDC and INVin does not meet that standard. Any agreement, as its starting point, should have included full disclosure of just with whom the RDC — and by extension the taxpayers of Vincennes — were doing business on this project.
That transparency is absolutely essential in any transaction involving tax dollars.
INVin had come to the RDC looking for money to meet a challenge from an “unnamed private donor” who, if INVin could get commitments for $300,000, was willing to chip in with another $100,000 for the downtown organization to spend on its projects involving the Pantheon and New Moon theaters.
The Urban Enterprise Association had earlier agreed on three annual payments to INVin of $33,000 each.
Tax dollars should never be paired with money of unknown origin, no matter what the cause.
Rather than go down this dark path, it would have been better for the RDC to agree to provide INVin with the full $300,000 rather than see the city become party to a deal with some mystery man.
Taxpayers have a right to be angry.