CCDC
Legislator Targets Urban Renewal Boards
February 6, 2020 
A bill that appears to be aimed at former Boise Mayor Dave Bieter and the Capital City Development Corp. (CCDC) has been proposed by a North Idaho Legislator.
Sen. Mary Souza of Coeur d’Alene appeared in front of the Senate Local Government and Taxation Committee Thursday. The bill has two parts – including a provision that would require Bieter to leave the CCDC panel.
BOISEDEV quotes Souza, “If you were appointed as an elected person, perhaps a city council member, if you are no longer in office, if you’ve been unelected or retired – you must step down from the urban renewal board,” Souza said.
As mayor, Bieter appointed and reappointed himself to the CCDC board of commissioners. His current term runs through October of 2022.
Souza said that a member could be reappointed (by the new mayor).
The CCDC is a strange animal. Members are appointed by the mayor, but after that there is no control except in the case of major corruption or misconduct. That sets the stage for a dysfunctional system with “hangers on” from one administration able to control or influence wishes of the new administration.
Several past city councilors are still on the panel. Even after he moved out of Boise, former councilor Dave Eberle remained on the CCDC board.
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Comments & Discussion
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Feb 7, 2020, 9:20 am
Not unlike the revolving door consultant in industry and government circles. We see this everywhere.
CCDC (or CCCP?)
It’s like a mini Deep State in our midst. Unaccountable and quasi secret. They plan and scheme and then forward their plots to elected officials that sell them to the public as “progressive.”
Eisenhower warned us of the Military Industrial Complex. We have here a Urban Socialization Complex. These guys can dictate everything down to what kind of plant you can have on your commercial property. It’s total Politburo stuff. Every single facet of your shopping center, as an example, is prescribed by these planners.
Just wait until they really get ambitious and bring in pure “wokeness” experts to dictate signage and profiling of businesses.
Feb 7, 2020, 8:16 pm
Unelected persons making the decisions to spend from the public purse – that is the bottom line problem.
This entity began spending (using bond funding) on the mega-library before the project was revealed to the majority of the genreal public who would be on the hook to pay for it.
Feb 7, 2020, 10:49 pm
Please just repeal all urban renewal authority and dissolve them all.
Feb 8, 2020, 9:50 am
I thought there was a sunset clause associated with the CCDC?
Doesn’t the CCDC create areas of the city that don’t participate in paying property tax to the taxing districts?
If you reside in the treasure valley when you add all state, county, city properties, churches, hospitals, parks, (BFD local unions building?) to URBAN RENEWAL, (CCDC) you can see how property owners are over burdened?
City protection services don’t know the difference between a fire at BSU or your house?
Maybe tax exempt properties in the treasure valley need to pay for some taxing distinct services!
Let’s take the training wheels off Boise.
Feb 8, 2020, 11:21 am
Frank: No “sunset clause” for CCDC as an entity. The sunset clause applies to the actual Urban Renewal District (URD), so that it cannot go on forever. Originally an URD could be 30 years and was later changed (?), to either 20 or 25, as I have seen both time periods attached to designated URD areas.
URDs do not create areas that do not pay taxes, rather, they create designated areas where any incremental increase in tax value is scrapped off the top and given to CCDC to spend as they please in the URD area it was collected from. Over a 20-25 year URD period, this can result in the incremental amount of tax being scrapped off for CCDC to use, being almost as much as original baseline amount of tax that is distributed to the various taxing districts.
Here Is An Example Using Only Boise City Tax Levy For 2019:
Approximation for a 0.890 acre parcel of land in downtown Boise in the designated Westside URD.
$3476 – tax received by Boise on $610,000 base value (the value of the parcel at time URD was created in 2001).
$2562 – tax received by CCDC/URD for $449,700 incremental increased value (this is the amount the parcel has increased in value since 2001).
This Westside URD still has 7 years to go until “sunsetting” in 2026, and at the current pattern of escalating assessed property values, it is highly likely the CCDC/URD incremental tax amount will be equal to, or even surpass, the amount that Boise receives.
This outcome is one of the contributing factors causing Boise to take the 3% budget increase each year, as they are receiving less and less tax each year due to it being redistributed to the CCDC, leaving the general public to subsidize growth.
Feb 9, 2020, 9:03 am
Let’s do that. Let’s dissolve CCDC. Or, lets require public votes to form districts. The numbers presented by Sunsetting above are startling. They show that the size of the districts have gone well beyond the intent of reducing blight, to being a full blow tax entity, with no oversight.
Lower taxes for the homeowners.
Feb 12, 2020, 5:10 pm
Thanks for the clarification. I’m still unsure of something! If the CCDC builds a parking garage in downtown next to existing Boise Cascade building ARE BOTH FACILITIES INCREMENTAL INCREASED VALUE’S DIVERTED TO THE CCDC?
EDITOR NOTE–If CCDC owns something it is tax exempt.