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SPRINGFIELD, Ill. Metro East lawmakers reached a breakthrough agreement Saturday on a controversial Glen Carbon commercial development project, and the Illinois House passed legislation that will help fund it.
The bill now returns to the Senate, which could pass it and send it to Gov. Pat Quinn before its scheduled Sunday adjournment.
The Democrat-controlled House passed late Saturday a measure to allow the unusual financing arrangement for the project, on a 78-39 vote after a lengthy floor debate.
Many Republican lawmakers lined up against it, citing concerns about fair business competition and environmental issues.
At issue is a proposed $1.5 billion development to be called University Town Center, which would be designed to attract businesses from hundreds of miles around. An unusual mechanism called “sales tax revenue” (STAR) bonds would finance the private development. Sales taxes collected within the development would retire the bonds.
The rare arrangement has been controversial partly because it would deny that tax income to the state and other public bodies because those revenues would go instead toward paying the bonds. Among last-minute changes in the bill that passed Saturday were the addition of public disclosure requirements about the how the bonds will be used and a provision to allow the establishment of competing projects.
The bill is SB1909.
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