vision2020@moscow.com: business park
business park
Bill London (london@wsunix.wsu.edu)
Mon, 6 Nov 1995 08:57:41 -0800 (PST)
I attended the 2020-sponsored meeting about the business park last night
(Sunday). What follows is random thoughts from that meeting.....
This morning (early, almost awake), I saw this effort (by Hodge, et
al) as a roller coaster. After plenty of ups and downs, the EDC is
almost at the top of the big hill, facing the incline and the coasting to
the end. They've jumped through a decade of hoops, held countless
meetings since the early 1980's, and after tonight's meeting (and the
council's approval of the Urban Renewal Agency) nothing will stop the
business park.
And along the way, nobody thought to ask the people of Moscow if
they want this thing. Does Moscow want this engine of growth (as in
Growth with a big G)?????
First we (as in tax-payers) build an incubator. All we have to
do is create a space for high-tech spin-offs from the UI, and they will
blossom forth on their own. Suddenly that's not enough. Once they spin
-off, these new businesses now need a second home to grow into. Will
they then expect the taxpayers to build them a factory so they can go
big-time???
A dozen businesses, each with how many employees? (the business
park design provides plenty of parking places, presumably for employees.
These employees (JOBS, JOBS) come to Moscow and build or buy homes, put
their kids in schools, etc. Of course, they then pay taxes on their
homes, BUT the business is not adding tax revenue (because of the cute
financing process, that tax money is going to pay for the business park
development). Who is taking care of the tax money from the businesses
that isn't entering the city coffers, you may inquire--and of course,
it's the other taxpayers.
And then there's the financing method (creating the urban renewal
agency, not to renew blighted areas but to serve as a vehicle to turn
wheatland into business parks). Bill Voxman called it devious at the
meeting. It just seemed bogus to me. Part of the indirect, behind the
scenes, don't involve the public, business slurping from the public
trough while decrying big government, same old same old.
Which reminds me of Steve Symms--not the recent incarnation of
the pork-loving DC lobbyist, but the firebrand libertarian who ran for N
Idaho representative 15 years ago. His logo was the apple with the bite
out of it and the message TANSTAAFL (there ain't no such thing as a free
lunch). In other words, somebody pays. Despite assurances by Hodge etal
that the financing for the park is "slick" and that it really is free
money for development--I can see how we (Moscow taxpayers) are assuming
that burden. And maybe we don't want that GROWTH.
But maybe we have never been asked.
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