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I actually attended the meeting and have first hand
knowledge of what was said and the content in which it was said. Shelley
Bennett's comments were the most on point (paraphrased) "Alturas has been a
success - Moscow is a slow growth town. We did not want the park filled in 18
months with 1,000 new people brought ot the area". The URA has not ignored
the original mandate - in fact, the URA is primarily the financing vehicle for
the public infrastructure of the park. The City of Moscow is responsible
for ensuring that the RTO (Research, Technology, and Office) Zoning is enforced.
The taxes utilized
to pay the bonds and all administrative costs have been solely paid for with
taxes generated by the TIF area. However, the amount due to the school is
given directly to the district and is not used for the repayment of
bonds.
Barbara Richardson Crouch
Latah Economic Development
Council
121 Sweet Ave.
Moscow, Idaho 83843
(208) 885-2832
(208)
885-3803
(fax)
edc@moscow.com
www.moscow.com/edc
-----Original
Message-----
From: bill london [mailto:london@moscow.com]
Sent: Friday,
September 06, 2002 10:22 AM
To: Vision2020
Subject:
Alturas
My thanks to Ted McDonough for the report
(front page Daily News,
Thursday, Sept 5) on the soon-to-be-finalized divorce
of the Urban
Renewal Agency and Alturas Tech Park. The URA funded the
creation of
Alturas with our tax money and the assumption that high tech
businesses
were going to fill Alturas, first an initial phase and then two
future
sections.
It didn't work out that way.
Even the first phase of Alturas is not
filled yet, despite the willingness of
the URA to ignore the original
mandate and open the site to lawyers,
accountants, and other offices.
So, I am glad that the URA
has decided that any expansion of Alturas
or the creation of other technology
parks is best left to private
developers. Of course, those who
constantly strive toward that elusive
goal of Economic Development are trying
to think of new ways the URA can
spend tax money. But I am more hopeful
that the decisions may be made
less blindly in the
future.
My favorite quote reported in the article is from
Gary Riedner, city
supervisor: "One of the things Alturas taught us is we
need to have a
business plan."
About time.
Perhaps Alturas was a good lesson for Moscow's economic
planners: Resist your
urge to offer taxpayer money to the fickle gods of
Economic
Development.