“Everybody knows that our TIF commission (in St. Charles County) probably isn’t going to be interested in retail and building a grocery store here when they already got one there and taxpayers got to pay for it,” Ehlmann said. “So my guess is the CID now is the Plan B.”

‘Cut the developer out’

Part of the concern for Cook, the UFCW union president, is that shoppers at unionized stores will be helping to finance a new grocery store in the Bornstein-Kroenke development, which he suspects will be a Fresh Thyme. That store is not unionized.

If Bornstein, Otto and Kroenke only had a CID on their property to finance the development, that would be one thing, Cook said.

“If you’re gonna put it on your own property for your own personal benefit, I can live with that,” he said.

Guccione, the mayor, said Cook is mainly opposing it because of the potential for a nonunion grocery store.

“This is going to be built 100% union, so all the other unions are OK with it,” he said. “It’s just him because he thinks it’s a Fresh Thyme. Well, then he needs to do his job and organize (their workers) if that happens.”