Riverside offers to meet with supervisors

By Mary Zielinski
The city of Riverside is willing to meet with the county supervisors to discuss Riverside’s claim that its revenue sharing agreement with the county is “void and unenforceable.” The city, through its special attorney Dean Spins, proposes that two council members and two supervisors, with counsels, meet. It would not be a public meeting. Spina, in his May 11 letter, notes: “Council members and members of the Board of Supervisors have varying amounts of first hand knowledge regarding the events in 2005. Bill Poch, Mayor, and Tina Thomas, City Clerk, have the most first hand knowledge regarding the events in 2005 and they could be available for all or part of the meeting to answer questions from the supervisors.”
The letter also suggests that “Prior to such a meeting it would be benefical to receive an analysis of the County’s position regarding the constitutional debt issue.”
During the supervisors meeting Tuesday, May 19, County Auditor Bill Fredrick referred to the recent letter and also outlined what had occurred in 2005 that led to the Infrastructure Finance and Development Agreement between the city and the county. In essence an urban renewal, tax increment financing (TIF) district was established to encompass the Riverside Casino and Golf Resort to provide TIF revenue to pay for the needed water and sewer improvements for the $140 million project.
Funding for the infrastructure was finally estimated at $9.4 million, well in excess of the cityÕs bonding capacity, so the county agreed to sell revenue bonds for it with repayment for bonds and interest (just about $13.5 million total) coming from TIF money.
“The county figures that the loss tax money (from using TIF revenue) would be about $3.3 million,” said Fredrick. In December, 2005, he said “there was a heated public discussion” in which taxpayers objected to losing the TIF revenue, that it would impact their taxes.
By that time, Riverside had signed contracts for the infrastructure work. By the end of December, an agreement was reached between the city and county that Riverside would pay the county $175,000 annually for a maximum of ten years to help offset the TIF loses. The first payment was made by Riverside in July, 2008.
In March, Riverside told the supervisors the agreement was void because when it contracted the debt it violated, unwittingly, the state mandated constitutional debt limit. The county responded March 31 that the agreement was not void, that agreement was a revenue sharing one, not a taxpayer obligation, hence there was no constitutional violation and it was a “legal and enforceable” contract. The supervisors also offered to meet with the Riverside officials in a public meeting. The May 11 letter was Riverside’s response.
Tuesday, the supervisors had set a closed session to meet with legal counsel; however, that was tabled because the county attorney could not be present.