The City of Vandalia will take another look at the possibility of a Business District.
Towards the end of Monday’s Vandalia City Council meeting, Alderman Bret Brosman presented the rest of the City Council with some information he had gathered. Brosman said he was inspired to begin his research after a couple of recent agreements the City of Vandalia has reached that Brosman voted No on. And, these were agreements that he believes would fit better if the City had a Business District.
Brosman said he looked up 24 different communities in the state of Illinois—the communities were of various sizes—and found that all but 7 of the communities had a Business District. Brosman says he just wanted to see the City of Vandalia get back to where they were a few years ago.
During Amber Daulbaugh’s time as the City of Vandalia’s Economic Development Director from 2018 to 2021, she contacted many businesses in the community to find out if they would or would not be interested in being part of a Business District. And, a map showing the results of that was presented at last night’s meeting, showing a mix of those in favor and those against the district in the community. City Attorney Ryan Connor said in order to get the matter moving, they would need to get a committee busy on the work.
The matter was referred off to the Economic Development Committee. One of the issues why some businesses would be against it would be a Business District would see an increase in sales tax by up to 1%. Brosman pointed out the City does not need all businesses in an area to be for the Business District for them to created it, but Mayor Rick Gottman said he would not be comfortable with forcing businesses to be a part of it. City Administrator LaTisha Paslay says she has very recently met with a representative of PGAV to revisit this process.
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