2013-09-09 Study - pension plans & CID in Loop

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District to govern various activities and to generate funds for such. Ms. Riganti said the two are separate but not equal entities and though they collaborate together, there is no formal agreement or code. She noted there is interest in developing some planning efforts, some funding mechanism and an agreement for the collaborative effort between the two organizations. Various mechanisms work for joining the two districts together into one collaborative organization; one might be a Community Improvement District (C.I.D.). Ms. Riganti said the City of University City through the Economic Development Retail Sales Tax, set aside $40,000 for this fiscal year, to engage a legal team to explore the mechanisms to forming a C.I.D. She said the City of St. Louis is also exploring the same. Ms. Riganti said the goal was to form separate, perhaps equal C.I.D.s. The goal of the legal team would be to explore what is in place presently, what the community and business districts want to see in place and to make recommendations to the best structure, functionally organizationally, politically and legally to form the C.I.D. She noted at this point the City was asking Council for authorization for the City Manager to enter into a legal contract to explore the best process. Ms. Carr asked if it would look like an overlay district. She stated that Ms. Riganti had said it could potentially be a synthesized organization, instead of two separate C.I.D.s. Ms. Carr asked how the City’s role would be justified. She understood in a C.I.D., the property owners would be taxing themselves not the City taxing the property owners. Ms. Carr said that she heard there are two separate equal or not so equal but would be an attempt to be equal and potentially join together. Ms. Riganti said the first step was to determine if both entities would want to form a C.I.D. and assuming they would want similar funding mechanisms, they would do so through adopting ordinances. She noted that right now, C.I.D.s cannot cross boundaries. Ms. Riganti stated a second step would be an additional layer of research and organizational discussions. The Board of Directors could use another mechanism in which to join the districts, such as becoming a 353 Corporation. She asked Mr. Klahr to elaborate on that. Mr. Klahr stated there was a whole continuum of coordination that could be explored. He stated the reality and the reason why the team came up with the proposal of doing a Community Improvement District or Districts was to potentially replace existing Special Business Districts as it gets very difficult to coordinate amongst two different districts. He said the C.I.D. provided more flexibility. It is up to the cities as well as the property owners to find the right level of coordination of what they were looking for. Mr. Klahr stated a C.I.D. is a more flexible mechanism to allow what he understood the goals to be over the next twenty plus years, to provide services and improvements that right now are not being funded by the City. A C.I.D. would provide the ability of additional funding mechanisms but to also do addition improvements and services that the Special Business Districts cannot currently undertake and to have a higher degree of coordination, should that be desired by the property owners and the cities. The C.I.D.s can operate in a more efficient and coherent manner across the entire area. Ms. Riganti addressed Ms. Carr’s second question in regard to taxing, noting that the funding can be driven in a number of ways. She noted this was still exploratory; it could be as property tax, or a sales tax in full disclosure, as well as a special assessment. It depended on a couple of things, including whether the entity to be formed is a political subdivision or a non-profit 4