•July 27, 2016•

By Derek Pope
For the News Progress

Bethany’s village board gave a nod to nature enthusiasts this month by approving TIF funds to expand and improve Crowder Park’s walking trail. According to the Township Investment Fund chairman Greg McLain, the park district had envisioned alterations to the existing trail that would expand its “most visible, top portion” westward “down by the batting cages or skate park”.

While modest in scope, the cost of the project was the motivating factor for Marrowbone Park District to seek outside funding for the renovations.

The park district is itself a taxing body, levying a portion of village residents’ yearly property taxes for funding, but McLain said that the park board reported only around $16,000 in on hand money when they submitted their proposal to the TIF committee.

Although the TIF committee has been somewhat deterred from funding major projects for other taxing bodies in the past, McLain said that the relatively small cost of the proposal influenced the TIF’s final decision.

“We have helped private businesses with a lot more money than what they were asking for so the committee recommended to grant them the entire $6,840.” McLain also mentioned the village’s 2013 decision to provide a much more sizable TIF grant to Marrowbone Public Library, another taxing body in the village, as precedent for the committee’s recommendation.      Login or Subscribe to read the rest of this story.