Board of Aldermen 2-12-2020 Page 18
Mr. Cummings
So if you were to pass the Jette amendment and New Market Tax Credits were announced and they were
announced not in the timeline that we are discussing, then the City would not be in a good standing or a
good position to actually be a recipient of the New Market Tax Credit.
Alderman Laws
Thank you.
Alderman Tencza
So I’m not going to talk about the New Market Tax Credits now because we’ve talked about it so much. So |
think what the Board needs to realize is that in order for a project to qualify for New Market Tax Credit there
has to be this funding gap. So if we were to do what Alderman Lopez suggested and increase the bond,
then we would no longer be eligible for New Market Tax Credits. So that’s why | think there hasn’t a
discussion about increasing the bond or finding some other source. Also | don’t know there is the will of
this Board to increase the bond past the $15.5 million dollars.
So let us say that we don’t get the New Market Tax Credit this round. If we adopted a timeline where once
the end of summer comes and we don’t have the $4 million dollars, $6 million dollars, then again the New
Market Tax Credits aren’t necessarily the be all end all. We can think of and try to find other ways to fund
the shortcomings and maybe our fundraising is doing better than we expect and they raise $4 million
dollars and we only have to make up $2.5 million dollars. We can find a way to do that through grants or
other programs.
| understand the want to keep this on a tight timeline, but | think we also need to realize, like any project,
somebody mentioned, you know, construction of the Y or the Capital Campaign. Groups have to make
decisions and plans change and you have to be a little bit flexible. So | think that this 18 months that
President Wilshire suggested at the Committee meeting gives us the flexibility. It doesn’t mean that we
can’t address this later this year, again anytime anyone brings up a piece of legislation before this Board
we have to address it. But the 18 months gives us an additional of time for people to raise money, for the
Board and the Community to maintain decisions going forward, how we want to deal with this project. You
know, if | went back and looked at the meeting notes from 2017 when the timeline was put in place,
Alderman Siegel at the time suggested that two year time period.
He did say at that time he was concerned about this piece of property just sitting out there and not
collecting tax dollars for the City. At our last community meeting he talked about his reasoning for that,
which is not necessarily borne out in the minutes of the Board of Aldermen meeting. He didn’t quite say,
well | was told you know, we wouldn’t be able to raise this $4 million dollars in just two years. He just said,
Sometimes within 2 years, we should you know, this should be the time line and people agreed with him.
So again that two year time period that was put in place in 2017 was doing exactly what it was intended to
do. It is making us re-look at the bond and how we are going to move forward with the project. We've
made so much progress now on the project, it doesn’t seem like we need to come back, well it seems like
another 18 months will be a good time period. We can have another discussion at that point if necessary.
Hopefully we will get these New Market Tax Credit, the money is raised and the project goes forward and
we start construction this fall.
Alderman Dowd
Just two things, one | believe that this amendment had been vetted by Legal and Bond Counsel. And | may
be wrong and | will let Attorney Bolton cover it, but if we make an amendment to this, | think it has to go
back for Legal review and come back to a future Board Meeting. That’s ridiculous in my mind. So we have
a deadline of tomorrow. The other point is that the New Market Tax Credits, there is no set date and time
that they are going to be reviewed and we need that flexibility, you know, this is Federal Funds.
