Agreements and disagreements with candidate Rybak:
RT writes:
>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.
Agreed. The Mayor's invisibility is a perennial accountability problem. She
needs to be available, at least for an explanation. That's leadership. And
Cramer's tone, if nothing else, was arrogant. But more on that in a minute.
>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.
Does that mean subsidize PDI to the tune of $1 million to $2 million, as St.
Paul did according to the PiPress?
(http://www.pioneerplanet.com/business/biz_docs/027044.htm) If so, I
vehemently disagree. For all of my criticism of the city's subsidy schemes
over the years, I am proud of the fact that Minneapolis doesn't, by and
large, subsidize office tenants. The role of government is to provide
top-quality infrastructure - the public responsibility - and let the private
sector leverage that infrastructure with their own investment. If we'd only
applied the no-subsidy policy to retail, we'd have a "right-sized" downtown
with plenty to do at a much lower price because of our strong office
concentration.
Look at why PDI moved; in addition to the subsidy (low by Corporate Welfare
Norm's standards) they are moving into Class-A office space being offered at
Class-Z prices. Why? Could it be that St. Paul's office market,
post-subsidy, is swimming in office space?
Would an RT mayoralty really add tenant subsidies to retail and
entertainment subsidies? Say it aint so!
OK, RT does in the next paragraph. But then what does that leave a mayor to
do?
RT:
>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.
<snip>
>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?
Ok, I'm skeptical. Would Norm, for all his reputed sales skills, have
attracted the Wild, Lawson, and now PDI without cold, hard taxpayer cash? I
don't think so. Question for RT: realistically, what can subsidy-free
cheerleading accomplish? - if indeed you are ruling out subsidies.
We are not St. Paul. We are also not cratering, or in need of
"recovery"-driven hoopla. Yes, the city is 40 percent funded by downtown,
which is funded by tenants, and we will dip when the market dips, probably.
But I am terrified that to correct the biz cycle, we will throw good money
after bad economics.
RT also references Doug Grow's column this morning on adopt-a-garbage
can...the city no longer subsidizes litter pickup - a public function - in
part, Grow reports, because the city's garbage enterprise fund went from
surplus to deficit.
I have heard that the city's internal services deficit (where departments
don't pay purchasing back for equipment they order) has been funded by
drawing down enterprise funds - instead of borrowing, which would show up
more publicly on bond house credit ratings.
I'm not sure if that's why the garbage fund went red...but if it did, the
litter-collection failure is a DIRECT (if somewhat delayed) result of fiscal
mismanagment...a real issue for a mayoral challenger to attack!
David Brauer
King Field - Ward 10
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