MTD trustee can pitch voluntary annexation to landowners

CHAMPAIGN — MTD trustee Phil Fiscella has been cleared to contact landowners in south Champaign to see if they’d be willing to petition for annexation, though his previous suggestion of reimbursing property taxes will likely not be a part of these talks.

The Champaign-Urbana MTD board voted 6-1 Wednesday to authorize these discussions. Paul Debevec, who had a number of questions about the idea, voted against the motion.

Fiscella’s hope is that, with the right annexations, the district will have enough contiguity to annex and serve Carle Champaign on Curtis.

Since much of the land that lies between the district and the facility is farmland, these properties cannot be annexed by the board’s usual process. However, a property that is contiguous can be brought into the MTD if its owner petitions for voluntary annexation and the board, in turn, approves their request.

Fiscella said that, by his estimate, the additional tax burden on these agricultural properties would be minimal.

While he added that he’d be willing to reimburse property owners for the cost for the first few years, other MTD officials indicated that they were uncomfortable with the idea.

“Could the CUMTD offer to pay the tax bill of these owners?” Debevec said. “And we could ask our attorney, but my guess is certainly not. And then I asked myself, ‘Could a member of the board of trustees?’ ... I think that’s really not appropriate either.”

He said he was in favor of modifying the routes but did not like the idea of offering a “quid pro quo.”

Managing Director Karl Gnadt said that research into case law would be necessary to determine if such an arrangement was allowed; however, he personally felt it would set a “very poor precedent” for the MTD to reimburse property owners for taxes paid to the district.

Attorney Alyx Parker concurred, stating that it would open “an entire Pandora’s box” wherein other property owners would also want to be reimbursed.

Fiscella later said that he could leave that proposal out of discussions.

At present, Gnadt said the district offers ADA paratransit service to Carle Champaign on Curtis due to its proximity to the district boundary, but it does not offer fixed route service to the facility.

“There is service that goes near there, but it doesn’t go into the clinic property and deliver people to the clinic itself,” he said.

Extending service to the site without annexing it would require a “cost-share” agreement with Carle, he told The News-Gazette.

Gnadt said the MTD had “pretty serious conversations” with Carle about this possibility about eight to 10 years ago.

It’s his rough recollection that the cost of extending weekday service to the site was about $300,000 annually. The MTD offered to provide a 65 percent discount, which would have put the expense at about $100,000 a year for Carle.

“I believe that they took those proposals seriously and they gave them serious consideration,” Gnadt told the board. “But at the time, they decided to not contract with us to provide that service.”

MTD trustee Alan Nudo wondered aloud if there was any chance of Carle reimbursing property owners for increased taxes since it is “in their best interest” and would likely would be much less expensive than $100,000 a year.