As a result, the owner of Independence Honda and Independence Lincoln-Mercury-Mazda got his wich to receive tax increment financing and modernize his Honda dealership.

City Council voted 6-1, with Council Member Charlie Rich voting no, to approve $1.6 million in tax breaks, known as TIF.

Tumminnia'a attorney, Richard King of the King Hershey law firm,debated a longer duration for the TIF, preferring a sunset date of 2015 instead of the 2013 date city staff listed in the ordinance. The council agreed to the 2015 date, with Rich voting against.

Tumminnia asked for $1.86 million in tax increment financing while the city countered with an offer of $1.3 million. King asked, and the council agreed to split the difference, arriving at the $1.6 million number.

The independent firm of Rule and Company Inc., recommended by the city but paid for by the applicant, was hired to verify the need for tax increment financing in the auto dealer's case. Rule stated in a report that Tumminnia could have asked for as much as $2 million.

King said his client was happy with the $1.6 million.

Tumminnia estimates a $13 million renovation project for his Honda dealership, which he would move from the south side of Lincoln-Mercury, 3151 S. Noland Road, to the north side once the building there is modernized.

The auto dealer would then demolish the current Honda building and build a new home for a future auto franchise farther back from Noland Road and less disruptive to the appearance and safety to Truman High School to the south.

Mayor Ron Stewart lent his support to the TIF proposal at $1.6 million and a 2015 sunset date.

'The Miracle Mile has been a very good thing for Independence,' Stewart said.'It is advantageous for the city to have top-notch dealerships...'

Rich voted against the proposal because he said he did not want the city to be in the practice of bailing out businesses that could have improved themselves over the years to avoid their present situations of blighted and outdated buildings.

'I have a concern - are we properly applying a TIF here?' Rich said. 'I don't think we're in businesses of correcting mistakes made by business people.'

Rich thanked Tumminnia for the fine job he did on the Lincoln-Mercury dealership but said he could not support a TIF for the Honda project.

Rich said he disagreed with the use of the word blight on a dealership that had an estimated $2.4 million in Honda sales in the last year.

'I don't want to set a precedence here,'Rich said.

With the proposal passed by the council, Tumminnia would be sheltered from 50% of the sales tax on auto parts and 100% of the new property tax on the lot until 2015 or until the $1.6 million is used up.

Sales tax on cars is not included in the TIF proposal, City Manager Larry Blick said.

'We will make sure it is built with national class standards,' King said.

Tumminnia said Honda was pressuring him to build a new dealership or the corporation would move out to the interstate.

In an effore to keep the Noland Road 'Miracle Mile' intact an prevent a domino effect, Tumminnia first came forward with a request for city help in August.

One change since the original proposal, an offer by the client to make a payment of 25 percent of TIF to Truman High School through the Independence School District was taken out of the TIF. Blick said it was necessary for the city to neogtiate the school portion out of the TIF.

'We had a difficult time with the application, and I know members of the council have too,' Blick said.

With the elimination of sales tax on cars from the TIF, it was also necessary to remove the school portion, Blick said.

'It just didn't seem to be appropriate,' Blick said. 'What we tried to do here is use this tool for economic development and not to build schools.'

Both King and Blick said the school would not be shorted any funding from its regular sources, despite the offer and then withdrawl of the school portion.

'It's not a beautification project, and it's not a remodeling project,' Blick said. 'It's a total construction of a new dealership.'

The TIF Commission approved the plan prior to the approval by the council. Any plans for the site and buildings, Blick said, need to go through the Planning Commission in the future.