Prepare dinner County’s watchdog dinged a member of the county Board of Assessment Tuesday for leaking unrevealed Chicago Bears trait tax enchantment details about the Arlington Heights racetrack the group bought.
County Inspector Common Tirrell Paxton’s record didn’t identify any officers. However the details of the case fit allegations in a whistleblower lawsuit filed towards Board of Assessment Commissioner Samantha Steele this summer season, coping with the wrangling between native faculty districts and the Bears, who purchased the previous Arlington racetrack trait and i’m ready their attractions on construction a pristine stadium there. The group has since inquisitive about staying on Chicago’s lakefront, despite the fact that officers have stated the suburban location rest a chance.
The IG’s discovering does no longer raise a penalty, just a advice that Steele remove ethics coaching for violating the board’s ethics coverage and the order’s trait tax code by means of leaking unrevealed details about the pending Bears’ enchantment in their trait evaluation and displaying partiality towards the group in feedback to the media.
Steele declined to remark Tuesday.
The IG investigation discovered a BOR professional “disclosed to the media confidential information” about two pending appeals — a contravention of the board’s ethics coverage round keeping up confidentiality — and “made public statements indicating bias toward an appellant,” a contravention of the obligation of impartiality within the order’s trait tax code.
An inner spat over the Bears’ trait tax enchantment on the county Board of Assessment in the past spurred a lawsuit from former Steele worker Frank Calabrese, who alleged Steele leaked the board’s resolution concerning the valuation of the racetrack trait earlier than a last vote was once taken. That go well with continues to be pending.
The 3-member Board of Assessment is a quasi-judicial frame that hears appeals to trait valuations. Attribute homeowners remove instances to the board within the hopes of getting their tests — and trait tax expenses — knocked ailing. The Bears, who purchased the Arlington Heights trait in 2023, were in negotiations with native faculty districts about how a lot they must pay in trait taxes for the website when their case got here earlier than the board.
Forward of that board assembly, Steele “made a comment to a media source indicating that they believed the valuation” of the racecourse “correlated to the purchase price paid,” the IG’s record stated, even if an enchantment was once more likely to come to the board. The Bears argued the evaluation must be considerably not up to the sale value.
Steele did inform the Tribune in the summertime of 2023 that the group had “create(d) the market” when it purchased the website. The IG stated the feedback indicated Steele believed the valuation appropriately correlated to the acquisition value, suggesting Steele was once prone to accumulation the Bears to “an artificially high value.”
The IG record, then again, misattributed a observation to Steele that the details backing up the evaluation “speak for themselves.” That quote got here from an assessor spokesman, no longer Steele.
That IG alleged the unrevealed knowledge leaks incorporated an appraisal quantity from a trait tax intervenor that weren’t society, information about board deliberations in addition to a initial promise a few valuation between the 3 contributors of the board all through its decision-making procedure.
The Board of Assessment in the long run i’m ready the website’s valuation at $125 million. Presen it was once smaller than the $197 million the group paid for the website, the Bears lengthy claimed it was once no longer importance that a lot. They introduced their case to the order’s Attribute Tax Attraction Board in April, soliciting for money back of $7.2 million from native taxing our bodies.
3 faculty districts intervened within the case, which continues to be pending.
Initially Printed:
