The State Tax Commission has sent a request to the city for several pieces of information regarding the Downtown Development Authority. The commission asked for a district boundary map, a differentiation between the locations and values of the DDA parcels when it was formed in 1993, then amended in March 2002, as well as public notice documentation and names of voting members.
The request came after Warren City Councilman Dan Fouts challenged the Downtown plan.
Gina Cavaliere, the DDA director, says she has submitted the required documentation.
"We gave them all the information they requested, and went into a lot of detail, in the packet and the presentation," Cavaliere says. "They were very surprised that the information they received was very different than what Fouts was telling them."
In Michigan, DDA's are set up to collect increases in tax revenue from businesses along the authority's borders and to use those Tax Increment Financing Authority funds to improve the DDA area.
Cavaliere claims Fouts is arguing the TIFA is not needed because the city is not doing poorly. The DDA director says evidence to the contrary was shown to the commission."We showed records from 1991, 1993 and 2002 showing deterioration," she tells GlobeSt.com.
Evidence included records from 1991 when the economy was coming out of a recession, and the Warren Tank Plant announced it was closing, causing 5,000 jobs to be lost in the city from 1991 to 1993. Also, she says the General Motors Corp. Tech Center, the largest employer in the city in size and workers, challenged its property taxes. The resulting 5% reduction caused the city to lose $11 million in tax revenue.
Back in the early 1990s, the Tech Center was close to obsolete, Cavaliere says. Now, the Tech Center is undergoing a $1-billion rebuild of its facility. However, the general area is still struggling, and population is declining, Cavaliere adds.
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