City Council.  Should it be appropriate if the City Council of Rainier address and take care of their created agency?  REDCO is capped at $300,000.00 in collection of tax revenues per year, and they also receive $300,000.00 from the taxpayers of the city of Rainier. Their debt payment is $600,000.00 per year, for twelve years. REDCO wants to shorten the time in the length of their payment period to approximately 3-4 years.
REDCO has the ability to go to the city of Rainier and request a tax levy to generate this money. This would Allow the voters an opportunity to have a say in how they want to see their money spent.
Taxes or not, REDCO has chosen to omit limiting their request to only the taxpayers from Rainier. They have instead decided to pass their debt on to all the taxpayers in our county.  They are asking for money from Vector Control, 911, Fire Dept., Columbia County, and all other special taxing districts.
I have a huge problem with this.  These other taxing districts receive their funds from the taxpayer in the form of levy's.  I feel that when  voters pass a levy for a particular district the monies should stay with that district and not be given to some other district or other entity. A special purpose district is not an institution of lending. If these other districts can run their departments on a 40% less budget than perhaps they did not need the increases that they have asked the voters for in the past.
REDCO's financial problems all go back to the U.S. Gypsum plant. This company was in bankruptcy at the time the County Commissioners, Port of St. Helens, City of Rainier and REDCO fought to bring them here for so called family wage jobs. The cost to the county taxpayer has been tremendous. This project took the county's entire road budget for several years in order to construct road for the Gypsum plant. The plant receives FREE tax's for approximately 7-9 years or more. The County has the buildings valued and taxed at about $372,000.00 = The County gets $4,000.00 in taxes per year from them. The buildings are actually worth several millions.  Something is not right here!
Most people were under the impression that they would be able to recover, investment money from property taxes. This is not so, this company pays very little in the way of taxes. Presently there is a lawsuit going on against USG with two construction companies in the amount of several million dollar. This suit is headed to the Oregon Supreme Court. So stand in line REDCO, Columbia County Port of St. Helens, City of Rainier, there are many others ahead of you in the collection line.
The poor taxpayer's of Columbia County are now being robbed of their tax base so that they can bail out the city of Rainier, and their creation REDCO's for their stupidity. These agencies did not take the time to research this company before brining it into their city.
As a tax payer I am not voting for any new funding for any special districts that would be willing to give up almost half of their budget to this underhanded debacle. I suggest that all taxpayers find out when districts have their next meeting and voice your concerns over this matter.
I will continue to up-date you on this outrageous misappropriation of funds.