The Albert Lea City Council made a mistake in 2005 when it gave a loan to the developer of the Tiger Hills residential development. There’s no doubt about that.

However, the City Council keeps making mistakes by granting deferments on the assessments that bring the money back into city coffers.

At some point, a person has to pay the piper.

The council in 2008 agreed to give a deferment for the first phase of the project. Last night, it granted a deferment on the second phase.

We feel the city should have asked for the full disclosure of the developer’s present finances when determining whether he really could pay taxes. The city at least should have required a letter of hardship, like any ordinary taxpayer. And we feel the staff’s recommendation of tabling the matter until spring to see how home sales go would have been a smart move. The city manager is correct that there is plenty of time. There was no need to act immediately.

Wouldn’t it be nice if you could just call your bank and tell them you intend to pay all your mortgage payments for the next few years in 2017?

Apparently, the developer of Tiger Hills doesn’t have the money to pay his debt. Deferring the assessments would allow him to use what money he says he has to pay his delinquent taxes and avoiding forfeiture of his unsold Tiger Hills properties.

He is lobbying for this because he says he has a deal worked out with the bank. Here is a quote from a letter to the city manager:

“The time has come that the council must make a decision on this now, as the funds are ready to release at this time. If we wait, then the bank will apply those funds to the loan and depending on market conditions we may not have the ability to pay at that time.”

It always was a sweet deal to get a loan from the city, a level of risk that most cities would not undertake and clearly now one Albert Lea should have avoided.

Such a move looked like it could set a precedent for other developers, but the council in 2007 closed that door to anyone else when another set of developers sought the same use of tax dollars for another residential development.

The fear now is that the city would end up owning the properties and having to sell them. True, it could end up owning them, but that is part of the risk they took a few years ago.

The developer has been granted plenty of breaks. It’s time to change course when it comes to Tiger Hills.