Tax Increment Financing, or TIF. It's a confusing term, it's a confusing concept. So it's no surprise that Tuesday afternoon's meeting on TIF at Chelan City Hall was confusing to a lot of people there – and it was mostly a full house in the Council Chambers. Someone in attendance later described it to me as a “hot mess.” At the meeting, City Administrator Wade Farris explained why they've decided to go this route:
The TIF is meant to provide funding to support needed infrastructure in East Chelan that would benefit all of Chelan with a redundancy system during emergency water shortage situations. It would contribute to needs such as an East Chelan reservoir and booster pump station, extensions from the reservoir to a Bradley Street water main, another extension to No See Um road, and a water main extension at Isenhart Road. Total cost of those project is more than 18 million dollars, the TIF could fund up to 16 million dollars of that. Bob Stowe is the city's consultant on the TIF project:
Under the plan, the city would adopt an ordinance designating the area that the TIF would be for, in this case East Chelan, include a deadline by when construction of the improvements would begin, and would be required to retire the area within 25 years.
The meeting held Tuesday was the second required public meeting required to be held. Now, it's up to the city council to decide if they want to go ahead with the plan.