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Umholtz, Tazewell County state's attorney, last week said he will pursue legal action against his own County Board's decision to extend an existing enterprise zone, allowing a wind farm development to be eligible for a sales tax abatement. He seeks an Illinois Attorney General's Office opinion on the matter.
One of the points Umholtz disagrees with is the issuance of a 3-foot extension many local governments, including the city of Peoria and Tazewell County, utilize to extend their enterprise zones.
For instance, last year Peoria's enterprise zone was extended using a 3-foot sliver from Main to University streets, allowing Prairie Farms to be part of the zone. That enabled Prairie Farms to get tax breaks to make improvements to the property.
Umholtz is concerned with how the enterprise zone is extending from Pekin to include the Rail Splitter Wind Farm, which is located in southern Tazewell County in Boyton Township. One look at the map shows the 3-foot extension zig-zagging its way to the south and branching off to incorporate each future wind turbine.
"It looks like a spider web," Umholtz said.
He said the way the map looks, the boundaries are illegal in that they do not meet state law requiring them to be "contiguous," or closely located to one another. He said there have been previous court cases in which a judge has struck down the use of streets as connectors in order for something to be considered contiguous.
Umholtz appears to be alone in this matter. No other state's attorney in Illinois opposes enterprise zone extensions, according to the Illinois Enterprise Zone Association.
Said Umholtz, "No one questions enterprise zones. The developers don't. The attorneys don't. They will certify anything sent to them."
Betty Steinert, president of the state association, said if Umholtz were to get the law struck down, preventing the use of 3-foot-wide strips to connect existing enterprise zones, it would affect how the incentive is administered statewide. "If we didn't have that 3-foot strip, we wouldn't be able to do anything," she said.
Umholtz said he wants an area considered contiguous to be considered just that.
"This makes the 17th Congressional District look contiguous," Umholtz said, referring to the west central district which is legally supposed to be "compact and contiguous," but in actuality branches out in a variety of directions.
"If this is contiguous," he continues, referring to the enterprise zone map extending to the southern Tazewell County wind farm, "I can't even imagine what an incontiguous would look like."
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