1. URban renewal funds can be spent ONLY within an urban renewal district.

True, politicians cannot raid the Urban Renewal funds to remodel their bathrooms or fund other pet projects.

2. Taxes on any new construction or increased property values will NOT go to the city of TF

True, but the city of TF will continue to receive taxes on the current value until the Urban Renewal Bonds are paid off or the URD term expires.

3 Under the current laws, those taxes are diverted from schools, city, county, etc. and remain in the urban renewal district

No current taxes would be diverted, only the new tax base caused by the increase in value by the Urban Renewal District would be diverted to pay off the bonds and the new tax base would revert to the city afterwards.

3. There will be increased demand for police, fire, sewer, and roads–all paid by those citizens who live OUTSIDE the UR district

I believe police, fire, sewer and roads are the infrastructure the URD is required to improve, or are they just going to spend the bonds on trees and planters around the plant?

EDITOR NOTE–The infrastructure investments will indeed be for the planters, trees and sewer around the plant (no police and fire). If they bring in “growth”
as predicted that will mean more demand for services as we stated.

I didn’t see anything about lower taxes for the company in fact the article said “It’ll cost the city and URA about $29 million all told, much of that raised by taxing the increased property value generated by the construction of the new processing plant.”

Sounds like a good business plan to me, invest in infrastructure to attract new business, new businesses pay of infrastructure with new tax base.

ERIC–If only what you conclude were true. URban renewal funds can be spent ONLY within an urban renewal district. Taxes on any new construction or increased property values will NOT go to the city of TF. Under the current laws, those taxes are diverted from schools, city, county, etc. and remain in the urban renewal district. There will be increased demand for police, fire, sewer, and roads–all paid by those citizens who live OUTSIDE the UR district. They make it sound great, but your conclusions are way off the mark. The $14 wage qualifies for about $2 million in Idaho Dept. of labor subsidies. Even those who disagree with we GROWTHOPHOBES will be hard pressed to show any of the facts we present are in error.

$14/hr with benefits equates to an hourly wage of about $10.60/hr after all the “benefits” are paid for by these workers. Come to Idaho the land of low pay, cheap houses and even cheaper land.

I can only wonder if the good people of Twin Falls will get stuck with all the costs of dealing with the increased BOD loading of the sewage costs from this facility or have they even looked at this boogie man that has to be dealt with.

Somebody should tell Tom Luna that wage is below the poverty line. It is equivalent to a starting teacher’s salary – a job that requires a 4 year college degree.