jurisdiction issue first it is the business decision of the county defendants of the circuit court did not have the authority and i have the jurisdiction to enter any order in this case that was contrary or outside of the authority granted to the circuit court by the property tax court code cited various cases indicating that real estate taxation is an area of special session torie jurisdiction the circuit court does not have original jurisdiction in real state tax cases why is this because the constitution gives the general assembly and the general assembly only the power to raise revenue and the general assembly exercises this power by law by passing statues let me get directly to the the issue here which is the joint venture has asserted that its claim is an authorized by law well what is meant by an authorized by law there are two possibilities one the tax itself is invalid it doesn't exist it hasn't been authorized there's a lot of possibilities nobody in this case has suggested that a real estate tax is not authorized it's really not an issue it's the second possibility that  would put this issue in this case within the unauthorised by law exception or not within the unauthorized by law exception and that is the it is the legislature give given a public official discretion in its assessment well with that in mind where does the assessor get the authority to assess from common law there is no common law already the the ability to tax is given to the general assembly which must then delegate various duties and authority to different entities this the ability to to assess is provided by statute and only by statute i'd refer to the property tax code it's section nine dash seventy that section says the department of revenue or the state of illinois which is not the assessor has the authority to assess certain things pollution control facilities railroads and something called low sulfur dioxide emission coal fueled devices whatever that might be and local assessment officials now are talking about assessor local assessment officers shall assess all other property not exempt from taxation what is the joint ventures interest in this front it's all of the property so the assessor has been given the authority to assess to assess a license or to assess all other assessment is this industrial property is this commercial property is it residential the it the assessor is been given the direct authority to go out and assess and make decisions those decisions are reviewable there's a fairly complete statutory scheme for reviewing possible errors and there are myriad possible errors but the  essence of this is the assessor has been given the discretion to make that first determination which then gets reviewed by the review processes of the property tax code the case cited by the joint venture is is knox county it's the next county x real masters and i believe it was a versus highlands that was a zoning case in which the  county board was not given the authority to zone agricultural property that would be akin to the assessor going out and assessing  enabling legislation specifically excluded the every cultural property from the from the count sensor gets to make in the states is this real estate you know somebody's got to make that first the first decision and but there is a complete review process for reviewing the assessors decision the board of review  to take a look at it and the board of review has a fairly extensive powers they can confirm revise correct alter modify the assessment as appears to be just i'm suggesting that the difference between knox county and this case is the enabling legislation said it was the assessors decision that the plaintiffs interest was the least rather than the license which then gave it the authority to assess the real estate tax you mean the essential makes a decision and his decision then gives him the authority know his authority comes from statute not from his decisions or the correctness of his decisions to to bolster to bolster this general approach that the assessor is is allowed to make mistakes you have to look merely to the to the property tax code section which allows judicial review that section twenty three fifteen which says this section shall be construed to provide a complete remedy wart any claims with respect to taxes assessments or levies so what's this claim it's a claim that the assessment is illegal therefore i don't have to pay taxes that very same section says the court shall grant relief in cases in which the objector shows an assessment to be what incorrect or illegal what's th case the joint venture says the assessment is illegal be crimes you can't tax a license the statute has intensive pated potential errors in that very first decision that the assessor makes is this real estate in short the an authorized by law exceptional call an exception is is inappropriate let me go on to the second issue which is is this a lease or is this a license i might note that this degree there right yes you're actually describes the place to be used it has in it a diagram which shows where this restaurant is supposed to be in the park the joint venture actually put in a couple million dollars in creating this restaurant and who incidentally located exactly where that diagram shows it to be  there is a bigger place certainly that restaurant is a particular place it's there three hundred sixty five days a year it's fully controlled by the joint venture there's also a store there's also storage facilities transferability possibilities it my sense is a is a personal right person rights can't be transferred by definition yet this agreement has the possibility of being assigned it has the possibility of being in heritage so the agreements structure first of all has all of the essential requirements of a lease and second has two features which can't be a license joint venture has appropriately cited a number of cases concerning the control that the park district has retained over over this this property and the case they cite is the charlton case that i believe charlton versus the champagne park district and there's a statement in there which is frequently noted in that statement is this in a lease the left see possesses an estate and controls the property against the less or and all the world is that true commercial leases routinely restrict the businesses and activities of lessee could i could i walk down the street and go up to a fellow leasing offices and say i'm a lawyer i'd like to lease this office and then use it as a as a auto repair facility or are stables whole do i as the lessee control the property against the last story in all the take a look at this agreement it is an agreement that essentially provides restrictions that define the restaurant to be operated well let's say instead of defining it by saying it's got to be a sit down restaurant and all these other restrictions they did that let's say they defined it by saying you should operate a mcdonald's here well with that simple statement comes a myriad of restrictions it's got to look like a mcdonald's going to have a mcdonald's menu and prices and and accounting systems and registers and uniforms and all of the things that were provided for in this agreement there is really no difference between requiring a particular type of franchise and creating your own kind of restaurant mr hemmer and i want to ask you a question where maybe there's a little bit of a merger between the two issues and that and that's why i was asking about the merger of these you know two issues so even if we disagree with you if we agree that the that the appellate or was correct on their assessment a license versus lease it doesn't defeat your suggest the focus here should not be on the control since every agreement's going to have controls and it is very difficult to just cut off where the control should be and how much control is a license comes controls at least the the emphasis should be on are the essential requirements of a lease present they are here what do these requirements what are these essential requirement the lease provide for the joint venture they provide certainty they know how long they're going to be there we're there going to be and what's it going to cost them any reasonable businessman has got to know that good morning runners may please the court i'm steve novak and representing the plaintiff i too would like to start with what we've called the jurisdiction wish you and i want to make two matters clear at the outset in doing so the first news is that the plaintiff does not challenge the amount of  the un authorized by law exception remains in existence or whether it applies to real property taxes it is a cause in the play to the defendant's reply in the opening briefs have conceded that instead your honour's the issues tendered by the defendants is whether our challenge comes within that admitted an authorized by law exception and it is surely does the fence have two arguments to the contrary and they both fail the first are given you heard it again this morning is that the exception allegedly is very limited to only two things first if the tax is generally unveiled as thought tax payers second if the official issuing the assessment was not the proper upon is the one that naturally says taxing is a legislative power power to tax nobody else can tax we're not asking a court to tax we're asking this court to do what it's done not only eight hundred fifty nine but i'm going to language around here i suggest it is limited to those cases that are crowd who we under article twenty three in other words the mistakes that we've heard about the amount of the assessment perhaps notice provisions in the law like if they authorized by law that's correct for us to get complete victory here you would have to agree with us on both issues but the jurisdictional wishing was separate from the outcome on me mirrored so she and argument wasn't made by a lawyer it was made by the dissenting appellate justice and he made the identical argument and he said you know what they have the right to be wrong as to whether that was agricultural or non agricultural property they have the authority to do that because they did forty two of them zoom in on agricultural property so they had to find out was that property nonagricultural same argument we're hearing today this court in two words answered the question what your honor said was we disagree and haven't jumped to that argument just a sports question i don't think was fully answered or at least not correctly answered this case is on offer was with knox because just argument we hear against knox there's only one argument is that the enabling statute the knox expressed plea for baby was a league of agricultural property but that confuses the issue because the agency has to get opening bid for page twenty can see that a license and seriousness truly license it's personal property not real property and it's not taxable so it's the challenge that raises the jurisdiction of the court not the outcome if this were challenge that the agency action was unconstitutional on its face to be no doubt that the court would have jurisdiction but if you were to hold the net case that it was constitutional that wouldn't deprive you of jurisdiction the outcome doesn't change it your decision that the action was constitutional would be binding forever so that the station that the labeling act doesn't prohibit is just wrong because they didn't react that was prohibit versus license this is not it's the same case the court has already decided we hear the argument in the brief that the assessor had the authority to tax licenses directly well that's not what the first one that i was rude to this made for the first time you reply but  reference to privileges isn't to a separate category of taxable property is to the fact that when the assessor is assessing the amount of the value of the property in the hands of the owner one of the things components that goes into it is the value of the license or the privilege but that doesn't mean you can tax the licensee real estate taxes are only permitted against owners one exception not a license maybe hypothetical makes the point let's say a nonexempt owner reasons the property to walmart to build an operetta store well either we saw a license he threw away it's a privilege that doesn't we all have experience ninety nine percent of challenges to assessments are the amount of an assessment this decision today will have no effect on that those will go through the administrative channels like always as to whether the floodgates in the end it's appropriate to have an authorized by law exception again this school exists to determine whether he had ministry official has issued to apply the property must be exempt before the release and must be exempt after the lease if the lease were to a private party had to manufacturing or something was nonpublic on the concessionary that's the biggest part of this property and there's no exclusive possession on the remaining part of the property because the plaintiff shares it all year round with the least three other vendors through other concessionair runs my time the red light is on the third no further questions i'll sit down by just asking your honour's respectfully to affirm the decisions below i thank you very much my responses are purely to point the word authorized it's being used in two different senses here council says that tax is not authorized maybe it is maybe it isn't statute the next case is been decided under a completely different statutory framework but let's just look at the logic of counsel's argument he says if the court loses jurisdiction in fact it can't even determine that it's a lease because it doesn't have jurisdiction it doesn't make any sense the court's jurisdiction is determined before the case gets there and the right or the authority to assess is determined by statute thank you very much i'd be certainly open to question