TIF, blight alarm business owners

There's no other way to say it. Dr. Rose Buckner is mad.

Mad, at first, at the Springfield Business Journal for running a story with information from public records that stated her property at National and Walnut is considered blighted by the city.

Then mad at city officials because she never received the certified letter sent last September that would have informed her the city wanted to create a tax increment financing district that included her property and was holding a hearing on the matter.

At a gathering June 7 at her office, several other property owners voiced their concerns about the tax increment financing process last fall, or were present to get more information, like Debbie Reichert, of Jay Key.

Others in attendance included Kirk Heyle, a local Realtor whose three properties that front National Avenue were blighted; Lance Reeves, owner and operator of Ebbett's Field on Walnut whose property was considered moderately blighted; Samuel Snead, CPA, who has an office in Buckner's building; and Gary Blankenship, owner of the Walnut Street Inn Bed and Breakfast, whose building also was moderately blighted.

In a letter to SBJ written after reading the June 4 story Buckner said, "The implication is that we're a bunch of ne'er-do-wells downtown who do not take care of their property. The unspoken implication is that we're irresponsible people who probably also do not take care of our clients or our patients."

She reaffirmed that sentiment at the meeting.

Blankenship found irony in the fact that his carefully restored Victorian house was not considered blighted enough by the city when he and his wife Paula applied for funds for facade improvements, but was certainly blighted enough to help create the TIF district.

"We're not a bunch of irresponsible yokel hillbillies that let the property go to heck," Buckner said at the meeting. "We're all landowners, and business owners, practitioners, doctors and lawyers just trying to make a living."

"All I have to sell in my lifetime is my good name, my word, my integrity and my ability to care for things that's what I do," said Buckner, a clinical psychologist. "If people think she can't take care of her property,' why would they think she could take care of them?" Buckner said.

She said she believes the blighting not only hurts her reputation but also diminishes the property values in the area. She's angry the city didn't think of that before blighting the property. "We'll never be able to sell these properties."

Blankenship, who supports the TIF concept, said the blighting hurts business. He said he has a hard enough time getting customers from the south side of town to come to the downtown area without having to deal with the issue of blight. "Perception is all we have in terms of selling ourselves."

He said that there were people sitting at the table in Buckner's building "who had no clue" about the blighting process. He didn't recall getting certified mail, but, then, like Heyle, he also gets a lot of certified mail from the city on different issues. He recalls the TIF Commission meeting last fall, but he didn't attend.

Reeves said he didn't understand the blighting because before he purchased the property he had an expensive commercial inspection performed. Besides, the city Health Department inspected the restaurant and gave it a 95, he said.

The city has blighted many homes and businesses in the historic Walnut Street District that runs to the downtown area. SBJ lists the blighted and moderately blighted buildings in the TIF district in this edition.

Buckner's property was blighted because it was too close to National, had insufficient parking, moderately deteriorating improvements, and was unsafe because of the traffic on National.

She took exception with that description. "Most of us have huge investments," Buckner said, adding that those who live or work in the area "cherish these old building and take care of them and hang onto them." She said that she has no control over how wide the street became over the years. "The houses and buildings were here long before the streets were expanded," she said in her letter.

Her parking, she added, is adequate for what she does counsel people one at a time. The same holds true for her son, Rob, a massage therapist, who also sees one patient at a time. Snead, the CPA, has the same small parking need.

Buckner disagreed with how the blight was assessed as well. The interior of her house is in excellent condition. Why did no one look inside? she said.

In her letter, she also offered the following reasons for the blighting from her point of view: "The intention to defame the property owners, to devastate their ability to make a living in their businesses and practices in order to run these people off the block and then offer them little for their property values is the product of local potential gain for very few."

In fact, Project 9 of the TIF district, in which the historic district lies, is a "cash cow," said Blankenship. The sole purpose of Project 9 is to fund the eight other TIF projects with the increase in city sales tax revenues and increases in property taxes that are expected by city officials as the downtown projects are completed. None of the money raised in Project 9 can be used to develop new commercial or retail facilities, according to the development plan on file in the city planner's office.

"It just didn't hit me that they could take our property," said Heyle, who serves on the city's board of adjustment and also Vision 20/20, which promoted the Jordan Valley Park concept.

"We recognize the power of eminent domain," said Buckner, "That's the scary part."

The city has the power of eminent domain and can, if a public purpose is proved, take an individual's property with adequate compensation. If the landowner doesn't agree with the offer, then, like George and Lynn Thompson, owners of Pontiac-GMC-Cadillac, the owner can have a jury trial on the matter. The Thompson case is on appeal.

The city was required by Missouri TIF law to send out notices by certified mail of the TIF Commission meeting; however, Reeves didn't know about that because the previous owner of Ebbett's Field, Nick Russo, didn't receive the certified mail notice.

In fact, there are at least 20 property owners for whom the city has no signed certified mail receipts: 600 North Prospect Holdings Inc., Alan Bailey (Bailey & Beck), Harvey Duane Barker, Rose Buckner, Luis Chavez, Colonial Baking Co., Lester L. Cox, Bruce E. Hunt, Megaman LLC, Vience J. Neill, Ropaha Investments Inc., Nicholas Dominic Russo (Ebbett's Field), Saco Petroleum Inc., Southwestern Bell Telephone Co., William D. Spence, Springfield District of the United Methodist Church, Springfield Parking Associates, Swisshelm Family Limited Partnership (Burger King), Scott R. Traylor Jr. et al. and Walnut Investment LLC.