So the legislature passes a means for growth to pay its way and the Guardian wants to bash people for actually using it. The enhancement of commerical opportunites, shopping, and retail is a better alternative than what we used to have. Which was nothing. The Tax Commission knows how to divide by two. The ability to get needed improvements that will benefit everyone sooner is good for all. There are many checks and balances built into the law. Stop being the myopic idiot.

We talk about the need to enforce impact fees for development. This law in effect allows developers the ability to circumvent roadwork impact fees. One additional thing to add to the pot is the fact that since Eagle Rd. is not scheduled for expansion in the 25-year plan, even if the developer fronts the money for the roadwork, the tax payers will have to come up with the money for maintenance that is not budgeted for, hence stretching the existing maintenance budget even thinner.

Meridianman come where’s the brains. It’s a typical scam. It costs us in the end.

Wonder how much you will make off this. Maybe that’s where the thinking is. Naaaa no one taught you to use the tools that you’ve been given.

You myopic morons. What solutions do any of you have? The Legislature passed the law. It does not affect impact fees. It improves a road that everyone wants to be able to use. Meridian used to be a place where you couldn’t even buy a decent dinner. Growth has good sides and bad sides. Get your heads out of the sand. Growth in the entire valley is happening and will contnue to happen. Come up with realistic solutions rather than just bashing on everyone that tries to do something. Every farmer that sells their land for a profit must be the greedy ones? Grow up.

meridianman (after insulting the the other commenters): “Meridian used to be a place where you couldn’t even buy a decent dinner.”

Has that changed?

(Yeah, I know – I don’t get out much. Especially to Meridian for dinner. The traffic scares me!)

Well, maybe growth isn’t so bad after all, huh?
(-;

You know, I don’t have too much of a problem with this financing mechanism for roads, particularly if Meridian is going to allow the project to be built as a PUD and particularly if Meridian turns down the PUD which they’ll then allow it to be built piecemeal. Why? Because if most if not all of this project is built piecemeal, it just adds to the traffic without requiring the developer to actually pony up a major chunk of money to fix the road.

Impact fees will probably not be required in any meaningful amount because I don’t believe the State collects impact fees. ACHD can’t assess impact fees on state roads of which Eagle Rd is one.

I guess I don’t understand where the money is supposed to come from to fix a road like Eagle Rd which has been totally jammed up making it fairly impassable. Taxpayers pay for public roads in the end. This way, the developer ponies the money up front and I would assume builds the road as well using State standards. Then the developer is paid back over time. I don’t know if he is rebated 60% or 100% but either way the taxpayers get a road, built much more quickly than relying on the government, probably at a cheaper cost when it’s built and most assuredly at a way cheaper cost than if we had to have government save our pennies and do it way in the future when the prices are up, up, up.

Eric, I think the problem with GARVEE is that the State is taking so very long to build projects and then undersizes them (like I-84) that the purchasing power is totally eroded before one mile is even built. And so what if the general fund doesn’t have this amazingly large (maybe, maybe not) amount of sales tax sucking into it. Government is not entitled to everyone’s money.

Besides, and again, pay me now for the roads or pay me later for the roads. This proposed format seems way more cost effective to me unless Meridian stops all development on Eagle Rd. Like that’s gonna happen.

EDITOR NOTE–The point of this exercise is the developer is calling the shots and ALL FUNDING will come from the state general fund (sales tax)! Would the legislature appropriate $15 million from the general fund so a new shopping center will have access lanes?…that is most assuredly the net affect of this deal.

Yes Dave it is kind of the same deal with Harris Ranch however, that one was approved before it was unapproved. That is, ACHD agreed to the deal which would have required that Harris Ranch be reimbursed for about a $6 million bridge. But ACHD never memorialized the agreement. Why? I don’t know but I think it had a little something to do with their incredibly incompetent attorney at the time among other things.

Now that bridge is going to cost at least 3 times more before completion. And it will come out of property taxes that all of us pay rather than the impact fees that those homes would pay.

Sorry, but I don’t think that’s a win for the taxpayer.

I think we’re all a little confused. Perhaps editor noteman could clarify a few things?

Does the issue here involve the fact that normally state road improvements are drawn from the gas tax fund (is this correct?) and not the regular sales tax on retail items, thus the developers control on how the legislature is able spend the money that would normally be in the general fund?

Can this law be invoked whenever the developer wants to as long as the proper conditions for the magnitude of the expense (between 8 and 35 million) are met?

And finally, so impact fees don’t play into this?
Does that mean that before this law, ITD had to pay for all of the road improvements when something was being developed?

Hope somebody doesn’t mind checking up on these things. Sorry I didn’t do it myself.

EDITOR NOTE–Bob,
You are correct in your conclusion the developer is attempting to create his own “improvement district” using sales tax revenues.

The Tax Commission is in the process of writing a directive based on the law. The problem is the law is totally ambiguous and they don’t know how to enforce or make the tax rules to carry out the intent of the law.

When drafted, it was done for Cabelas at Post Falls. The law refers to “interchange construction,” but then goes on to talk about other improvements.

Sales tax goes to the general fund (generally speaking) thus about 11.5% is split among all the cities and counties in the state–political subdivisions. About 83% goes to the state general fund.

Once again, where do we find the maintenance $ for the new lanes, that is a lot of extra pot holes we have to budget for in the next 25 years. What’s to stop the next developer from deciding the following month that we are going to indirectly pay for his decision to front money to widen a different stretch of Eagle Rd? Potentially, a large portion of hte sales tax dollars could be drawn away to pay for these improvments. As Eric said, there’s only so much purchasing power in teh valley, and if more shop at this particular development, less will go into the general fund.

This topic of Eagle Road traffic reminds me of why I shop online at Christmas. And Treva, there is a line on the State sales tax form for you to fill in the amount of sales tax you owe for online purchases. When speaking to the State budget guys, I was told I am one of only a handful of Idahoans that actually fills that box in on my returns.

Shame on Mayor Tammy and her developer pals. I read the editorial in the Statesman this morning and it just got me furious! The Guardian explained the details, but left out the part about sales tax going to the schools. We all have to do something to stop these greedy people. I am now a growthophobe for sure.

http://www.idahostatesman.com/editorial/story/190745.html

Colleen: There are probably not very many people who keep records of where they purchased things such as books, or sweaters, or analyze at the end of the year if sales tax is due the state of Idaho. Good for you for being so thorough and honest.

Wonk–
Why don’t you tell your “ilk” that you have been turning tricks for years on behalf of government and fat cat developers. All the neighbors and postal people know who you are. You didn’t get those PR jobs because you were a hard hitting impartial journalist. Even when you worked at the Statesman your slant was for growth.

“Another commenter made the point that disposable income is a finite amount. Rather than “new money” being spent (and taxed), a good portion is merely shifted from another retailer.”

So, there may be a slight chance that I am not a myopic moron? Maybe just a regular moron?

Having the developers pay for the road is good.
Paying them back is bad.

If they want the new development so badly, they should just pay for the road and consider it part of their investment in those stores etc.

By the way, are all the stores already out there making so much money that we just need to have some new businesses to take it away from them?

Still, widening Eagle Road is good. It’s already a lot of fun to turn right onto E.R. from another street and then try to force your way toward the left so you can turn left later to get where you need to go.
Working your way across even more lanes would be even more fun — and should create even more work for the tow truck drivers, police, ambulance crews, hospitals, maybe even the mortuaries — see, it’s good for business, more jobs, more pay, etc.
Should make evrybody happy.

You can argue the pros and cons of this all you want. Both arguments have valid points, and both have weaknesses based on bad assumptions and partial truths used by everyone, from the Legislature on down to Dave.

One indisputable fact is that Idaho is Republican Central and our ‘leaders’ will continue to give as many breaks as possible to Big Business. That’s what we get in a country whose motto should be “Never Let Common Sense Stand In The Way Of Making A Buck”.

The sad part of this story is that ANYONE is willing to spend $15M to buy another dead horse because beating the ones we already have isn’t working.

Einstein defined insanity as continuing to do the same thing over and over and over and over again, and somehow expecting to get a different result. Look at the history of Eagle Road over the last ten years and make your own diagnosis of our culture.

Besides, “Q: How many lanes does Eagle Road need to handle all the drivers from California? A: Nobody knows, because as long as there’s one Idaho driver on Eagle Road, traffic will be screwed up.”

To be accurate the need for Eagle Road improvements were recognized in the long range regional transportation plan, but because the federal government changed the rules and forbid any projects that had no probable funding to be included in the projects list (requiring them to be fiscally constrained – not a bad idea) the needed road improvements could not be included.

The proposed STAR-eligible development just provides a light at the end of the tunnel – allowing planners to finally add the needed roadway improvments to the list. A lot of attention has been given to the extra lanes, but the real system benefit to the through traffic (those not going to, or comming from, the development) will be the inclusion of access control measures (raised medians, and better signal coordination). These will lessen turning movements and decrease congestion in the corridor.

In reality the developer should not be reimbursed for any roadway capacity that benefits his development solely – this is his to bear to make his investment profitable (not the publics). But, roadway improvements come in big chunks (whole lanes, whole intersections). Perhaps the development will actually only require a fraction of the proposed improvements – but you can’t build a fraction of a lane. The developer should be reimbursed for the portion of the roadway improvements that benefit the general public, but for which his development will receive only small (if any) benefit. Call it his non-prorated share.

If anything should be highlighted by this discussion it is the inequity of the gas tax distribution. District 3 (the Treasure Valley plus a little more) generates well over 40% of all gas tax revenue for the state – a lot of people, buying a lot of gas, putting a lot of cars and wear & tear on the District 3 roads. But, District 3 gets less than 20% of the gas tax revenue to build and maintain its roads.

The valley is a big economic engine for the entire state, and we buy a lot of the product from the communities in the other districts. Unfortunately, our state highways the district suffer for the urban/rural divide in the legislature.

There’s nothing inherently wrong with a state sales tax reapportionment – if done fairly. If anything it may help strike a balance in the gas tax distribution problem. The real difficulty is the lack of “sideboards” in the legislation (the Guv’s term, not mine). There’s no language in the statute that would put the breaks on an overly large reapportionment that could hurt the rural areas.

Please note that ITD does note have the legal authority to charge Impact Fees (yet) – and Eagle Road is actually State Highway 55. And there’s a general misconception about Impact Fees – they can’t be used to improve roadway conditions. That’s right, if the system sucks when you begin collecting such fees, the money can only be used to make sure that the system won’t suck more. And, not a penny of Impact Fees can be used for the operation or maintenance of roadways. Right now, well over 75% of ITD’s budget is spent on O&M – and that figure is climbing every day as salaries increase (to keep up with cost of living), employer healthcare costs increase, fuel costs increase (with no increase in the per gallon gas tax), and every construction material known to man is increasing in cost.

The STAR program is only one “tool” to address a fiscal crisis (and a short term one at that) – but it can’t be the only one. The folks who reside in Boise’s other big hole have to roll up their sleeves and look at the big picture. What we need is a Copernican Revolution in the way we fund infrastructure in this state.

Though not a Republican, I am fond of Lincoln’s 1854 notion on governance,

“The legitimate object of government, is to do for a community of people, whatever they need to have done, but can not do, at all, or can not, so well do, for themselves – in their separate, and individual capacities.”