Yesterday we were breathlessly told to prepare for yet another apocalyptic weather event that never arrived. Out in search of flashlight batteries and cans of beans, I happened upon representatives of Flaherty Collins, loading the trunks of their cars with cases of champagne.
Sly Stone once observed a riot going on. In New Albany, we specialize in anointments.
Coyle site TIF abuse: "Because subsidizing wealthy, out of town developers is the only thing our economic development director knows how to do with our tax money."
There was a gently facetious comment posted about the preceding, and while normally I wouldn't repeat it, the sentiment is deserving of open refutation proportionate to the backroom greasings that have produced the Coyle site deal.
How dare them foreigners (from Indiana) invest in our town! Xenophobia is alive and well in some quarters.
If the investment "in our town" is credible (read: profitable), as developers like Matt Chalfant, Steve Resch, the Carters and others seem to think it is, then why must we in effect pay someone to invest in NA?
This is what we're doing with Flaherty Collins.
But couldn't these monies be used to augment the non-subsidized local investments already taking place, by developers working on their own, from no more than a profit incentive borne of risk and opportunity?
Didn't I read somewhere that this is the essence of the free market?
Perhaps there is more than the immediately obvious to "boilerplate" economic development strategies.
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