By Greg Halbleib
NORMAL – A Normal town councilman says combining sales tax revenues from the Twin Cities into a single pool will foster cooperation in attracting new business.
R.C. McBride says he first came up with the idea after seeing tension between the Twin Cities when a car dealer moved from Bloomington to Normal, and after seeing sales tax incentives provided to a grocery store’s move between communities.
“I just got to thinking that maybe we to somehow set this aside so that’s not a concern,” McBride told WJBC’s Scott Laughlin. “We want our businesses to succeed and we want to attract new businesses to our community and we want those to succeed regardless of which side of Division Street they’re on.”
McBride says he’s heard of successful sales tax combination elsewhere. He adds that many logistics would need to be worked out.
“Representatives from both councils and both staffs need to be in one room and hammer this out so that both sides are whole at the beginning,” said McBride. “We’re close, but it’s vitally important that everybody enters into something like this, should it happen, feeling good about it.”
McBride says Bloomington and Normal should work together to attract and keep businesses, and combining sales tax receipts would mean that if one community adds business, both communities benefit.
“That’s a big picture economic development issue,” said McBride, “because if we don’t start thinking that way I can guarantee you other places in Illinois, other places in the Midwest, certainly other places in the country are thinking that way and they’re succeeding because of it.”
Greg Halbleib can be reached at greg@wjbc.com.
