Future TIFS could impact Colona Fires ability to respond to emergencies

The City of Colona is purposing to create a new TIF which would include approximatley 800 new homes. This will be the 4th TIF in the city of Colona which is unheard of for a city the size of Colona. What this and other TIFs do is the City takes the taxes that are suppose to go to such districts as the Fire District, School District & many other districts and keeps that money to help the developer build ammenities for their development. This TIF will last for 23 years. What this means for Colona Fire is that for the next 23 years we will not be receiving the money that people in this TIF pay for a Fire Tax, instead the city will keep it and give it to the developer when he needs extra money to put in streets or street lights for example. This is a common practice, however the problem is that the Colona Fire Department will have 1/3 of it's district in a TIF and not receiving any additional money to protect this area which will be approximately 3000 people. If the TIF is approved the Colona Fire Department will lose over $2,000,000 over the 23 years.

The city of Colona has stated that they intend to give a portion of the TIF back to all the taxing district. The have stated they are planning to give 20% back to all the districts however the school district will be receiving the majority of the 20%. This amount will help the fire department but will not come anywhere close to helping us offset the additional costs of servicing 3000 new residents.

The Fire Department is 100% behind new growth in our community. We encourage this growth, however we feel that these houses can be built and sold without needing a TIF. Currently there is a housing development being built right now less than an 1/8 of mile from the newly puposed TIF area and they have already sold 80 homes and plan to build 60 more all without a TIF.

We ask all of you to contact your Alderman and the Mayor and tell them that this is not fair to the fire department and not fair to you because the 2/3's of Colona residents who do not live in a TIF will have to cover the costs of the other 1/3. Imagine asking the city to provide all the services to 3000 new residents for 23 years and not get any additional funding to offset the costs. The city would not be able to do this yet they ask all of the taxing districts to do that exact thing.

Colona & MABAS 39 Names State Teams

Colona Fire along with MABAS 39 have been chosen by the State of Illinois & the Illinois Emergency Management Agency to be both a state-wide Special Operations Hazardous Materials Team and also a state-wide Special Operations Technical Rescue Teams.

 The teams will be receiving equipment and training worth over $400 million over the next year. Both teams will be going through a tremendous amount of training. The Hazmat team will attend approximately 110 hours of classroom training, while the Technical Rescue Team will attend over 400 hours of classroom training before they are brought online by the state. The Hazmat team has already started its' training and will be completing the training by the end of the year. The TRT team will begin its' training in October.

 The State has created approximately 30 Hazmat teams & 30 Technical Rescue Teams throughout Illinois to handle and kind of large incident or terrorist attack. The teams have been located throughout the state in such a way as to be able to respond to any incident within an hour of activation. The Quad-cities will now have two sets of teams located in the area. MABAS 43 which consists of East Moline Fire, Rock Island Fire, Moline Fire, and the Arsenal Fire will also have both a Hazmat & a TRT team.