Rathdrum Voters Favor Tax-Increment Financing To Lure Micron

Rathdrum voters favor using tax assistance to attract major businesses, including a Micron Technology Inc. expansion plant. Ballots tallied late Tuesday favored the use of taxincrement financing, 299-35. Another 43 voters simply offered “other comments” to the city, according to acting Mayor Tawnda Bromley.

About 1,290 advisory ballots had been mailed to residents in late January.

The ballot question asked voters to decide how to pay for a new sewage treatment facility - through property taxes or by recruiting new businesses using tax-increment financing as bait.

The sewage treatment plant would be needed to accommodate Micron.

“This will be a way to pay for infrastructure without taking it out of our residents’ pockets,” Bromley said. “I was hoping the vote would go this way because our infrastructure is in need of improvement.”

Five sites in Rathdrum are candidates for a $1.3 billion Micron expansion plant. Other developments also would be candidates for tax-increment financing, including a power plant proposed by Btu Energy Inc.

Plenty of infrastructure improvements are needed to accommodate the Micron plant, including widening state Highway 41.

The sewage treatment plant alone could cost as much as $20 million. Less expensive options are to start land application of treated sewage or to help pay to upgrade the Post Falls plant. Rathdrum now shares the Post Falls sewage treatment plant under a longterm contract.

Bromley said Rathdrum likely will begin forming an urban renewal commission, the legal entity that would issue bonds under any use of tax-increment financing.

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