Gerhardt
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Gerhardt
Our state allows CIDs/TDDs. That's Community Improvement Districts and Transportation Development Districts. The way it works is that property owners in an area can band together to create their own quasi-government. They get to draw their own boundary lines so that they get to choose which areas are affected and who gets to vote. The gist of it is that they can increase the sales tax for their district.
We have a situation now where property owners of a business strip drew the boundaries last year to specifically exclude residential properties (the citizens who would be affected by a special tax) so that only the CID members could vote. If any citizens in the CID are eligible to vote, then the CID board is not allowed to vote. To their surprise they forgot about one small house in their district, and a 23 YO college student lives there and recently registered to vote. The manager of the CID contacted her and asked her to un-register so they could vote implement the tax. She said no, so the manager asked her to vote for the tax, which she is against because it unfairly taxes the poor people who live in the area. side note: it's predominantly a grocery and fast-food area. It also irked her that the CID manager is paid a $70K salary by the CID who wants to raise taxes to pay the salary and make infrastructure improvements.
My thought is that CIDs shouldn't be legal. The city has its own sales tax, and if the city council doesn't deem improvements to certain sections necessary, and the property owners don't want to pay for them, who are they to create their own special tax to increase the values of their own properties?
I wonder if other states have these and if they seem as corrupt as this does?
We have a situation now where property owners of a business strip drew the boundaries last year to specifically exclude residential properties (the citizens who would be affected by a special tax) so that only the CID members could vote. If any citizens in the CID are eligible to vote, then the CID board is not allowed to vote. To their surprise they forgot about one small house in their district, and a 23 YO college student lives there and recently registered to vote. The manager of the CID contacted her and asked her to un-register so they could vote implement the tax. She said no, so the manager asked her to vote for the tax, which she is against because it unfairly taxes the poor people who live in the area. side note: it's predominantly a grocery and fast-food area. It also irked her that the CID manager is paid a $70K salary by the CID who wants to raise taxes to pay the salary and make infrastructure improvements.
My thought is that CIDs shouldn't be legal. The city has its own sales tax, and if the city council doesn't deem improvements to certain sections necessary, and the property owners don't want to pay for them, who are they to create their own special tax to increase the values of their own properties?
I wonder if other states have these and if they seem as corrupt as this does?
