Enough Already...

Time marches on.

And legal fees continue to mount. The City of Fairfield has paid out over $40-thousand dollars to a Springfield attorney to advise them on their hopelessly screwed up Tax Increment Financing accounts. He was hired over a year ago. We still aren’t there. In fact, I don’t even think are near the end of this fiasco.

I spent Wednesday night listening to the rope-a-dope continue. Understand, the taxpayers are the ones being played as dopes. The continuing saga festers between our community’s leaders. Every time I write a story about yet another meeting----at maybe 2-grand-a-pop in legal fees---I envision District 112 Superintendent Dr. Scott England poking his eye out with a stick.

His district agreed to support the extension of the TIF back in 2014----in exchange for 40-percent of the take. He isn’t getting a dime now. Neither are the park district, the high school, the college, the library….they negotiated in good faith and have nothing to show for it.

The real burr in my saddle----and likely in Alderman Gary Moore’s-----was the Wednesday night city council finance committee meeting. Moore isn’t on the committee, but he showed up anyway. He wanted to stay in the loop as an elected member of the council.

When the finance committee decided to go into closed session---asking members of the media to leave----They also asked Moore to leave. What ensured was not described as pretty. The lawyer claimed they were going to discuss personnel and land acquisition. I told them that was bull.

Get to the end of this gold-paved road. The only way the city can afford it…..is because they are taking the legal fees from TIF….and keeping it from the other taxing bodies…which in turn have to bump our taxes.

Enough is enough.