Taxpayers should ask whether local governments' use - some might say overuse - of economic development goodies pays off

Over in Tazewell County, State's Attorney Stu Umholtz says he might sue his own County Board if its members go ahead with extending enterprise zone benefits to a proposed wind farm operation, as he believes it violates state law.

In Peoria Heights, they're getting ready to dip their toes in the shark-infested waters of tax increment financing for the first time.

And in Peoria, City Hall is again talking of extending its enterprise zone, this time to Glen Hollow Shopping Center with a few stops along the way, all decidedly not blighted areas - especially Glen Hollow, one of the most heavily trafficked retail destinations in the region.

Ahh, just past the Fourth of July and yet socialism continues its creep - OK, it's a trot now - through central Illinois, with barely a ripple of protest. Guess everyone is numb to it.

We always issue the disclaimer that we're not absolutists on economic development incentives, that there's a place for them when properly applied, though we do have objections to the way local governments have picked winners and losers in a free market that really isn't, anymore. Let's look at these case by case:

- In Tazewell we detect something more to the spat between the state's attorney and some County Board members than just a difference of professional opinion. While we're none too keen on one part of local government suing another - attorneys win, taxpayers lose - Umholtz is on the right side of this issue by taking his stand on principle.

The state law in question is not ambiguous. It says enterprise zones are to be restricted to "depressed" areas, defined as those "in which pervasive poverty, unemployment and economic distress exist." That does not describe the border between Tazewell and Logan counties.

Look, we didn't write the law. Words matter. Don't like the words, change the law.

That's not all that bugs us. First, the everybody-does-it defense employed by some Tazewell board members is a cop-out for those who know they're on shaky ground but want to rationalize a "yes" vote. Sorry, but these elected officials can read and comprehend the law; they don't need anybody in state government, where "no" is not in the vocabulary, to tell them right from wrong, legal from illegal. Springfield and Chicago are about the last places we'd go for such direction.

Second, it's obvious this issue is less about principle than about the money for some, specifically the hundreds of thousands in "fees" the wind farm folks would give to Pekin and Tazewell if they get the answer they want. Tazewell Board member Mike Godar calls it "pay to play," a kind way of putting it.

We're not opposed to this wind farm, not at all. We're opposed to private sector, for-profit companies getting public help they don't need in areas that are legally questionable. Maybe it wouldn't be such a bad thing if a lawsuit were filed and the Illinois Supreme Court were eventually to weigh in.

- Moving on to the Heights, the Village Board there is contemplating its first TIF district, this time to resurrect the old Pabst plant site, and specifically the Cohen's warehouse, into a mixed-use development with retail, residential, a community center, a brew pub and possibly a hotel.

Peoria Heights Mayor Mark Allen argues, and with some merit, that the property has done nothing but decline in the quarter century since Pabst left, while showing no signs of reversal without a government nudge. He promises the village will go slow and not borrow vast amounts to do advance infrastructure work - build it and they will come - without specific projects under contract and ready to go.

Because he's concerned about the TIF's impact on school revenues, Allen says an inflation factor will be built in that will guarantee District 325 an annual 2 percent assessed valuation increase on the impacted property for the 23-year life of the TIF. That does remove one of our primary objections.

We appreciate Allen's work in the Heights; he cares about his town and wants the best for it. That does not change our concerns about TIFs. Specifically, we have our doubts that some of the proposed uses - a senior center, for example - will produce the increment necessary to meet any bond obligations. Heritage Square just across the street received a 10-year property tax abatement and still can't fill the place.

We suppose Heights officials deserve the chance to learn TIF's lessons for themselves, so long as they don't put local taxpayers and other, existing businesses at too much risk. Good luck.

- Finally, the city of Peoria has been on an enterprise zone binge of late. Like those earlier efforts, this latest proposed extension doesn't qualify if the Illinois Enterprise Zone Act means what it says. From where we sit, Peoria hasn't had all that much success with these incentives. Yet City Hall keeps doing the same thing over and over, not that our definition of crazy matches anyone else's.

To be sure, some communities have improved themselves with such incentives - East Peoria is one - but they're not the magic pill they're made out to be, and local government's record of force-feeding a market on a reluctant private sector is very spotty.

Beyond that, we do lament the slow demise of full-risk, full-reward capitalism and fiscal conservatism in central Illinois. R.I.P.