Will Cook County Expand "Enterprise Zones" to Western Suburbs?

Cook County Board of Commissioners Finance Committee - Departmental Budget Hearings
November 2, 2017
  
Office of Economic Development (OED)

Commissioners Present: Daley, Gainer, Morrison,  Simms, Boykin, Silvestri,, Moore
Commissioners Absent: Deer left after about 5 minutes, Tobolski, Moody, Goslin, Schneider, Butler, Fritchey, Suffredin, Arroyo, Garcia

The Office Of Economic Development works to bring businesses into Cook County. It also works closely with all of the collar counties. It works across departments in order to achieve long-term planning goals and regional development. The OED attracts both private investment and grants from the federal government, mainly from HUD (Housing and Urban Development).
Mike Jasso and Susan Campbell were the main presenters from this department.

Some Highlights:

1. One of their main goals is to match affordable housing with where the jobs are located.
2. They have achieved some success with this goal in a program called South Suburban Initiative. They have attracted metal companies and trucking companies and have achieved some HUD money for this.
3. One way they attract businesses to an area is to create an enterprise zone in that area. Then business can apply for tax breaks in that zone.
4. Much of their staff is funded through HUD grants, but they do have 12 FTE’s on the county payroll.
5. They have also attracted private funds through foundations such as the MacArthur Foundation.
6. They have fulfilled their STAR goal of reporting all tax incentives that they have used and they have reported the numbers of new businesses they have attracted.
7. They hope to attract more manufacturing to the Chicagoland area.

Some Questions and Answers:

1. Comm.Simms  asked about funding to free buildings of lead based paint. The presenters said that not enough money came from HUD, but some extra funding came from the Illinois Dept. of Public Health.
2. Comm. Moore asked what areas of the county benefits most from tax incentives? The presenters said that the south suburban areas benefitted the most.
3. Comm. Boykin asked if the western suburbs could be declared  enterprise zones, especially places like Maywood. The presenters agreed that this was a worthy goal and they would try harder to work with businesses to locate in Maywood and other underdeveloped western suburbs.

Observer - Jan Goldberg