Next time you see your taxes going up, or see the city cutting more of your
basic services,
http://www.startribune.com/viewers/qview/cgi/qview.cgi?story=83413239&templa
te=column_grow_apull
check out this morning's Star Tribune article about Personal Decisions
International (PDI).
http://www.startribune.com/viewers/qview/cgi/qview.cgi?story=83414696&templa
te=metro_a_cache
It will help explain why we need a new Mayor who understands there is a way
to build the city without writing massive subsidy checks out of the public
checkbook, and a way to spur the PRIVATE SECTOR to pay for basic services
without taking more and more from those of us who live here.
PDI announced they are moving their corporate headquarters, and several
hundred people, from downtown Minneapolis to downtown St. Paul. The news was
met with a shrug by the head of the Minneapolis Community Development Agency
and the Mayor was, as usual in these situations, nowhere to be seen. There
at the groundbreakings; not there when we need her. Norm Coleman was
personally involved in the negotiations. Where was our Mayor?
Every time a rent-paying tenant moves out of Minneapolis they are taking
money out of your pocket. Tenants pay rent, the more rent the buildings get
the more the building is worth and the more taxes the building pays. The
downtown district, depending on how you define it, now pays about half the
city's tax bill. In other words, we should fight for every tenant because
their private dollars help pay the bills.
But once again on the Mayor's watch another tenant gets away. We saw it when
Lawson Software moved 1,000 jobs from Minneapolis to St. Paul. We saw it
when Life USA merged Golden Valley based and Minneapolis based companies and
decided to locate them all in Golden Valley. We should be watching very
nervously as General Mills decides whether it should keep it's Pillsbury
employees in downtown Minneapolis or move them to Golden Valley. Minnesota
Public Radio made noises about moving to Minneapolis but it looks like once
again our Mayor is getting outhustled by Coleman.
It doesn't just stop at office tenants. Coleman's off talking to Amtrak
about having a high speed line come into downtown St. Paul. Where's our
Mayor?
When the final story on Coleman is written, and all the financial books are
closed, it may well show that much of his "salesmanship" included public
subsidies that put the city in a rough spot. Lawson was one such example.
Minneapolis doesn't need to put the money on the table.....with three times
the office population, a strong core base of businesses and a much livelier
downtown...we don't need to write checks to make people want to work here.
But we keep losing people we should be keeping because we don't have an
effective person making our pitch. Shouldn't we all be asking why our leader
is getting beaten over and over again in a game that is taking money out of
our pockets?
So ask yourself: While taxes are going up and we're being asked to "adopt a
garbage can"--- like running a city is some sort of bake sale--- why are we
letting all these potential tenants (read: tax dollars) slip through our
fingers?
Ask yourself why was Steve Cramer, the head of the MCDA, so cavalier in this
morning's paper about the PDI move: "To me, it's a nothing issue. It's
another office tenant...It doesn't have any appreciable impact."
Cramer gets bashed unnecessarily, and has done some very good things...but
in this case I think he was way off base. He should remember very well what
it was like when he was on the city council in the mid to late 80s as the
real estate market went soft: Without enough tenants, the downtown buildings
challenged their tax assessments, their tax bills shrunk and the city's
revenues plunged. Suddenly there was a looming crisis.
What if that happens again? What if the economy keeps going down, just as we
see looming financial problems at City Hall? By then I'm sure we won't be so
light hearted about losing private investment in the city...but it will be
too late.
The Mayor's current philosophy for building an economic base for the city
seems to be that the only thing she is willing to do is write a check out of
our pockets.
A real mayor needs to put down the checkbook, pick up the phone and start
hustling.
R.T.Rybak
www.rtformayor.com
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