LETTER: It’s wrong to have TIF district for well-heeled data center

To Ozaukee Press:

Tax increment financing (TIF) is a public financing method employed by local governments to stimulate economic development and revitalization, often in distressed or blighted areas. 

  There is nothing distressed or blighted about the area targeted for the Port Washington data center. The fact is that the data center developer came looking for a lucrative financial investment. It presented it as a benefit to Port Washington in order to con the Common Council into setting up a TIF to pay the huge cost of infrastructure for the project. Taxes paid by the data center will be used to pay back TIF borrowing, delaying benefits of the development to the city. 

In my view, the TIF is being sought inappropriately. The margins in the data business are huge and I see no reason that the stockholders should benefit from a TIF at the expense of the taxpayers of Port Washington. 

John S. Strauss

Campton Hills, Ill.