By: Diane Benjamin
If you opened a business I doubt you would expect government to set special property values just for you. And you sure wouldn’t expect those values to be fixed for 4 years so your business wasn’t adversely affected if conditions change.
You also wouldn’t be telling government you will sue them and make them pay legal fees when they lose if they don’t agree to your terms.
The people listed below think they need protection not available to you. There is a settlement agreement circulating right now through local taxing bodies that has already been approved by Unit 5 and Heartland (maybe others too). The last agreement expired so this agreement just extends the same thing for another 4 years.
See pages 8-11 for the business representatives expecting you to pay for increasing Equalized Assessed Values (EAV) while exempting themselves. Ever wonder who is behind one of the numerous local rental properties? See the long list.
Jeffrey Tinervin is listed numerous times
Craig Schumaker is listed numerous times
Several others are listed a few times.
This document is full of legalese, but here’s some excerpts. The first one shows this agreement covers 4 years which means if your assessed values continue to increase they don’t have to worry about paying more, unlike you:
This one proves they don’t want to risk their prosperity because of changing market conditions – in other words capitalism doesn’t apply to them:
Finally, these people will get what they want as they did from 2018-2022 because the local taxing bodies don’t want to waste money on legal fees when they lose. I was told the previous settlement did go to court, taxpayers lost.
Illinois Constitution Article 1: https://www.ilga.gov/commission/lrb/conent.htm
This agreement doesn’t provide EQUAL protection to all other taxpayers and thus violates the Illinois Constitution. They will win anyway because money buys what they want.
Apparently the exorbitant rents these two charge students isn’t enough.
If the business owners WON, I’m thinking two options for everyone else.
1. Precedent for court filing themselves.
2. Retroactive and/or automatic equal protection applied grandfathered for all taxpayers henceforth due to precedent of the court case ie pseudo “class action”. Threat application of the case/cases.
Would Tuna and shumaker be considered capitalists or oligarchs?
You’re right Diane, Businesses SHOULD pay their fair share in taxes. We need to close these corporate loopholes and hold CEOs to the same standard as non business owners.
Assuming the previous agreement is equivalent to the one linked here, there is zero legal basis for Requiring it to be extended. Unit 5 et al should instead be signing an inter-governmental agreement to share legal fees and the subsequent reimbursement in the event any of the Landlords actually were to sue.
But it’s long since been established the school boards represent the school boards, not the students or the taxpayers or the parents. Signing this requires the least work and thought by the board, so that’s what the board will do, regardless of impacts to any other groups they allegedly serve.
Rataxas is alive & well in BMI-NML, but this isn’t the way to address it. There’s no monarchy in the US, but many think there is – e.g. Joe “The Scrambler” Robinette & Jill “The Pill” Bidet.