By Gail Peckler-Dziki
Correspondent
The Salem Lakes Tax Incremental District (TID) Joint Review Committee heard the annual report on Sept. 4 at the village hall.
A TID is used as a financing tool to aid development and economic growth of a particular area. Representatives from each affected taxing body form the joint review board that looks at the TID to determine if they believe the plan follows state statutes.
A base tax rate is set and each taxing body will receive for the life of the district. That could be 20 years unless the increased tax increment pays off developer infrastructure costs sooner.
Members of the committee are Diann Tesar, village president and chair of the committee; Nicole Massie, representing Trevor-Wilmot Grade School; Bill Whyte, of Gateway Technical College; Patricia Merrill, who represents Kenosha County; and Vicki Galich, as a member of the public.
The business park is located on Highway C, just south of the Salem Lakes fire/highway building.
Todd Taves, senior municipal adviser from Ehlers, presented the financial report and said that this year an expected decrease in incremental value is shown, by $821,300.
“This assessment,” Taves said, “is done by the state and the loss in value is not surprising. The village has nothing to do with this estimation.”
In nine years, Taves expects the 27 available acres to be fully improved and each to have a value of nearly $560,000.
Currently, there is one business in the park, Vonco, which moved to Salem Lakes from Lake Villa, Illinois, and has constructed an 80,000-square-foot building to house its packaging business.
Vonco produces flexible bags for medical and food products. It also has the ability to allow a company to customize flexible packaging for particular needs. However, if there are some packaging needs that can’t be met for certain products, e.g. cosmetics, businesses may want to look at alternatives and take a look at why Impacked is built specifically for primary packaging or use local sources for assistance.
Types of packaging for this company include leak-proof food product bags, stand-up pouches, industrial-shaped bags for consumer products, and a developer of specimen and biohazard bags for the medical industry.
Interim Village Administrator Mike Murdock said that while there is only one current business, “There have been several others inquiring about possibly locating at the Salem lakes business park.”
Salem Lakes has worked in partnership with the Kenosha Area Business Alliance to purchase the property for the business park. The two are still partnering to discover and help other businesses to locate there.