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Health & Fitness

TIFs Downtown: Is This Insanity Or Will Northbrook Get Results?

The Village Board is going to 'strongly consider' a TIF district in Northbrook. Does anyone remember 1987, when this exact same idea was overwhelmingly defeated by residents in a referendum?

The Northbrook Plan for development has been given the go-ahead by the steering committee to be presented to the Village Board of Trustees at its February 21, 2012, Committee of the Whole meeting, at 7:30 p.m. in the Village Hall Board Room.

, the Village Board is going to 'strongly consider' the establishment of a tax increment financing (TIF) district in downtown Northbrook. A TIF would give Northbrook the ability to use future gains in taxes to help finance currentimprovements.

Does this sound familiar to any of you out there? Some of you may remember that this exact thing was tried in 1987 and was shot down overwhelmingly by a public referendum. According to the Chicago Tribune story from 1987, a total of 3,300 Northbrook residents came out to smash this idea to the ground... even after the Village Trustees had already approved it.   

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Under the original plan, a 100-acre area of downtown Northbrook would have been segregated for 23 years. The additional anticipated $28 million dollars that would have been collected through the additional taxes could have gone for parking garages, beautification and given developers a touch more incentive to get moving. 

The residents said they wanted ‘sensible redevelopment’ that would maintain the character of the community. The President of the Village, Dick Falcone, and the trustees relented to the pressure. They reversed their decision 4-2 after the walloping they received on the referendum. 

Find out what's happening in Northbrookwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

The residents strongly objected to the idea of adding 255,000 square feet of business space to downtown Northbrook. They wanted more trees and landscaping instead. 

The current TIF specifics have not been presented to the community yet. But, if we are all in this together, it is imperative that each of us does our own research to become educated. 

The elected officials and village staff will review these proposals for hundreds of hours. They will make their decisions, and hopefully, they will lead. We need strong leaders right now to guide the residents of Northbrook to success.  

Let’s give the board and the village the opportunity to educate us. Then, I hope each of them comes up with strong and logical reasons for their positions. They can’t be afraid they will be ‘voted out of office.’ They have been elected to lead, guide and take us into the future.

Even though this quote by Albert Einstein is used so frequently, it never fails to bring me back to reality... “Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” 

Are we going to get different results this time? Village Board members...it’s time to lead. 

Kati Spaniak is a 36-year resident of Northbrook, a former Northbrook Village Board Trustee and a real estate broker with @properties specializing in selling real estate in Northbrook. She has created a Get Involved Northbrook Facebook page to keep the residents of Northbrook involved and active in the community.

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