The City of Spooner has approved up to $1.64 million dollars for road and utility work in TID #4.
Tax Incremental District #4 is the area of the proposed Wal-Mart development.

No opinion will be given as to the merit of this action.

However, the "How" this happened is of concern.

An excellent view of "how" this action was taken is expressed in an opinion written by Spooner Advocate reporter Frank Zufall.

...if you are someone who cares about open government and including a clear agenda that lets you know what government officials will be discussing and voting on and you like straight talk from those same government officials, then Tuesday, Dec. 2, was a sad day indeed.

Item “b” in section 7, “Discussion/actions” for the Tuesday, Dec. 2, monthly Spooner City Council meeting reads, “Action on TID 4 projects.”

As a reporter who has covered the Spooner City Council since March 2003, I have seen similar written descriptions that pertain to one of the four TIDs within Spooner. It is not uncommon that such a description would address a business interested in locating within one of the TIDs, or work that could be done within a TID, such as surveying, or the status of a project.

Some agendas spell out the nature of the discussion more clearly, such as “the color to paint the TID 4 water tower.”

But on Dec. 2, the city council did not discuss a minor issue, like the color of a water tower, but an issue of great magnitude with repercussions on a pending Wal-Mart development and the future economic development of Spooner and even Washburn County.

It turns out that “Action on TID 4 projects” was a very big subject, a very important subject, a subject that involved several questions the public may have wanted to weigh in on, such as:

• Releasing Wal-Mart of an obligation it has said it would assume until recently.

• The pros and cons of using TIF dollars. Yes, there are both pros and cons for TIF investment.

• Economic development in Spooner.

• Those for and against the proposed Spooner Supercenter.

When it came to “Action on TID 4 projects” there were I and two others in the audience. None of us spoke up during public comments before the discussion because, quite frankly, we could not discern what the council was going to discuss. It was too vague.

A question citizens of Spooner should ask is, “Does ‘Action on TID 4 projects’ give any indication that at the end of the council meeting the city would release Wal-Mart of potentially $1.64 million of improvement costs Wal-Mart has said, as late as the summer of 2008, it would assume and/or make the same dollars available for other major development in the area?”

This is a serious problem.

Possibly a legal problem.

I highly recommend anyone interested in this issue to read the entire opinion here.

Free registration is required to read the entire opinion. But, worth the minute to register.