Special Board of Aldermen 09-28-2020 Page 8
Director Cummings
Yes, of course, happy to send this along. | know it will become a public document and it will be attached to
the minutes. | will also make sure that any member who is interested can have a separate copy e-mailed to
them. So if | may Mr. Chair, | guess for just one second | want to take a moment and thank and recognize
the entire Capital Campaign Committee along with the leadership of Debbie and Rich. They have done a
great job and they have done yeoman’s work especially during the times that we are under to bring us to a
point where we are at 60% of our goal. Our goal is $2.5 million, they are at about $1.5 and that is definitely
something to be celebrated.
With that being said though, that is only part of the conversation this evening. I’m sure the next question
folks want to dive into is the New Market Tax Credits. So | am going to pivot and talk a little bit about our
financing plan as | move this presentation forward.
New Market Tax Credit update: So overall, there had been some misinformation reported, | am not exactly
sure where that came from. But nonetheless, we are very much working with Mascoma Community
Development. They have given us a verbal commitment of approximately $2.8 million dollars which at the
end of the day will translate into about $2.5 million. So we are well on our way in terms of the New Market
Tax Credit. There are some conditions and some details that we are still working out and this has been a
conversation we've had in earnest over the last two weeks with Mascoma. | wouldn’t have been able to do
it without Celia Leonard or Neil Cannon. Both of them have been very helpful to me as we advance this
part of the funding plan for this project.
So | am hopeful that we will continue to have these positive conversations with Mascoma. They are
committed to the project under the condition that we close the transaction this year. If that’s the case we
will net $2.5 million again for this project. So how does that translate into our overall financing plan? So
with $15.5 million of already authorized money through a general obligation bond, if the Board so adopts
the TIF bond that is before you this evening with hopefully a positive recommendation out of this
Committee, you'll be at $5.5 million or about $21 million. And then with the local Capital Campaign on
target to make $1.6 million and the New Market Tax Credit at $2.4 or $2.5 million, we are well within
striking distance of making that $4 mill dollar private sector commitment that was made when we first
endeavored a long to making this project happen. Between the local Capital Campaign’s efforts, the New
Market Tax Credit, we are targeting $4 million dollars and that will allow us to move forward with that $25
million dollar project.
Mr. Chair, if | may, | am just going to stop right there and talk a little bit about the Legislation that is before
you this evening. | am going to stop sharing my screen now. And | am happy to pull up some other
documents as may be necessary but | don’t want to necessarily have documents up when | know folks like
to see the screen and be able to see people. So | don’t want to unnecessarily share my screen.
But essentially my closing comments on this is you have before you now two pieces of Legislation. One is
relative to the adoption of the TIF District. The second is the authorization for the $8 million dollars. |
wanted to talk a little bit about how TIF’s work. So what a TIF is, is the capturing of the increment above
the base taxes or the base valuation that the general coffers or the general fund receive. You take that
dedicated increment and you apply it to certain priorities, certain goals, certain objectives. In this case,
we’d be looking to capture about a half a million dollars of tax revenue and we would be dedicating it to
very specific projects. And this would only come about because of the project that is actually contemplated
or being brought to fruition. You oftentimes do this type of municipal financing, this is a tool that is readily
available to everyone to help bring about projects such as these that we are talking about this evening;
parking, reinvestments in your downtown, a Performing Arts Center, sometimes operational expenses as
well.
| have a chart that | could show to everyone exactly what it is that | am talking about, but | don’t want to
necessarily pull up a document so | am not going to do that unless | start getting questions. This document
