I too find myself astonished to say this, but the Free Lance-Star’s editorial hit this one on the head. Virginia (we focus on the Rappahannock region) is finding itself in a bidding war for commercial growth to help prop up the commercial tax base so that the homeowner’s taxes aren’t the ones being raised.
The trouble with that is: that’s exactly where the taxes come from to subsidize the businesses! Moreover, the government is hand picking the businesses from mega-project Kalahari down to family-owned (two locations) Kybecca wine.
What’s the rhyme or reason? Apparently, you just need to know the right people and ask. There’s nothing on the books that I could find that makes this a LAW that the government MUST follow… conversely, it appears to me to be a gross mismanagement of the public’s trust, nay, the public’s CASH.
Gene Bailey of Fredericksburg Regional Alliance says we must do this because if we don’t, other localities will. And Gene must be our local expert, because we’ve paid for him to travel around the world multiple times to bring back new businesses here to the region, and in about 10 years of SUBSIDIZING his salary, we’ve netted (someone correct me if I’m wrong) ZERO new businesses, unless you count the Chinese gift shop in Stafford, then ONE. His budget is somewhere between $500,000-$1,000,000 per year. Hmmm, times 10 years… zero results, carry the zero, add the zero, and YES- IT’S A NET LOSS FOR TAXPAYERS no matter how you slice it.
But the city council and surrounding counties subsidize this guy (and small staff) in the name of recruitment. Last I checked, in a budget crisis, we should be CUTTING DEAD WEIGHT. And here’s a regional $10,000,000 investment gone the way of my Enron stock. Use THIS cash to help keep the taxes low and the REGULATIONS MINIMAL, and you’ll attract new businesses.
Bottom line is our regional governments have become SO INTRUSIVE to anyone trying to start, build, or operate their business that most any owner you speak with will tell you that the local government is the NUMBER ONE PROBLEM with their daily lives. So I can’t help but wonder what an outside business owner looking in, and doing his diligent market research, would learn from his few days in town… hmm…
Fortunately, Mark Cole has proposed state legislation to put a study on this and contrast Virginia to other states who have outright BANNED public subsidy for private enterprise. I can certainly see cooperation with a would-be business by the government, for example, adding a traffic light or a turn lane into the property, but we already make the private land owner do that if they want to connect to the road. I could see the government upgrading the water pipe or adding some telephone poles to handle the service to the new employment center, but we already make the project pay for that too.
SO- the government is resorting to just cutting checks or waiving tax payments for up to 20 years… well City of Fredericksburg– and surrounding localities suffering from the same ailment– I’d like to apply for a start-up grant please– where do I go for my check?
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