Remember the big STAR Bonds development in the city of Marion?
Our guest writer this month, with an article featured on page 2, certainly does.
If you’re wondering what’s been going on with the STAR (Sales Tax Revenue) Bonds development, you’re not alone. So here’s your opportunity to catch up, and to read what’s going to be a series involving careful dissection of use and abuse of taxpayers’ money in Marion, Williamson County, and beyond (think Barrett Rochman). Here now is the introductory article to the multi-part series we’ll be running on the tax issues in Marion throughout the Summer, Where is the STAR Bonds development, your mid-day Read the Lead:
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WILLIAMSON CO.—In 2010 it was an election year. Politicians were popping up everywhere with huge announcements of exciting job growth projects and even more transportation improvement projects. Night after night the news was filled with carefully-doled out tidbits of the enormous efforts being made by the politicians to bring “STAR BONDS DEVELOPMENT” to Marion in southern Illinois. Entire photo frames struggled to include everyone’s elbows as developers and local leaders jockeyed for front and center. The coffee shops were buzzing. Jobs, Cabella’s, waterparks… Marion was going LIVE! Whole segments of the media were designated for educating the public as to what STAR BONDS was, and why it was WONDERFUL.
Governor Pat Quinn signed the controversial STAR Bonds (Sales Tax Revenue) legislation into effect on June 24, 2010 in Marion in southern Illinois. He described the STAR Bonds as a ‘pilot program’ for southern Illinois, with local legislators promising 6,000 full time jobs upon likely completion within five years.
Today, nearly four years later, the only visible difference is 30 acres of decaying corn stalk stubble on the prime center of the STAR Bonds acreage on Morgan Avenue in Marion just off of the new I-57 interchange. The promised jobs and revenue are nowhere to be found. In fact, the property is embroiled at the heart and center of TIF and property tax scandals involving the developers and local officials, and is bringing in even less in property taxes. Nearly 50 of the STAR Bonds’ touted 400 acres have been put into “conservation acreage” producing almost zilch in property tax revenue, and the 30 acres above were inexplicably assigned “farm” status and reduced to a grand total of only $83.40 in annual property taxes in 2012, the very first year anything was planted (this in direct violation of law).
The initial developer, Bruce Holland, of Swansea, Illinois, pulled out of the $383 million development project in April of 2013, signing back his options and role as master developer to Douglas Bradley of Marion Heights, LLC. Bradley has managed to get his name on a sign of shame on Morgan Avenue as a result of unethical “land grabbing” from a local commercial broker. When she refused to sell him her 2.5-acre tract of land, he went to Regions Bank, bought her mortgage, and began foreclosure, without waiting for possession of the note, a situation playing itself out in Williamson County courts and only recently decided in his favor after it was indicated that the judge in the case was issued a death threat (see related story, page 1). Governor Pat Quinn promptly flew down and posed with Douglas Bradley and others re-announcing Interstate 57 road improvements…
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To read the rest of this article, simply click on the headline link above to go right to it if you have an online membership to the e-Edition; and if you aren’t a member, click this link to get started. If you prefer to read a hard-copy version of the paper, you can get one by visiting any of our vendors, including these in Williamson County: ROC One-Stop in Marion and Johnston City; Pit Road Racing in Marion on the Square; and Hunter’s Cove Barbershop on West DeYoung. Hurry and get your copy; this one is off stands in A WEEK.