A company that's building a 180-unit apartment complex on Clinton Street could be awarded a sales tax exemption for building materials and supplies for the second-phase of the $25-million development, officials said.Why should the public subsidize a development that extends the need for more public infrastructure and services into new areas, while those things in other areas go underutilized? If exemptions are to be given, they should be limited to incorporated villages and cities where services are already in place.
OCIDA and EDGE only think about "development" . . . and not what the development will ultimately cost an overburdened public. This is what happens when "regional" entities are created that are given narrow responsibilities. OCIDA and EDGE will not have to deal with the need for roads, sewers, water, police, etc. that their sponsored developments will require.
Our system of local government needs an overhaul.
Update ==
Check out Greens & Beans Comment below
1 comment:
Many years ago we studied the Behavioral Psychological Theory of “Classical Conditioning.” The premise of Classical Conditioning is primarily to reward the most desired behavior to insure its reproduction. However, in Oneida County we seem to reward the behavior we need to reproduce the least. I suspect that Oneida County is practicing some sort of reverse Classical Conditioning with its sales tax subsidy for the expansion of a new housing development in Kirkland.
Just a few months ago, Oneida County Executive Anthony Picente Jr. seemed reluctant to reduce the sales tax by .75% he dampened his announcement of the reduction by placing all of the County property owners on notice when he told Nate Crossett of NewsChannel 2 that “. . . he's (Picente) not ruling out property tax increases in the future.” http://www.wktv.com/news/local/7444161.html
Why would the County Executive make such a statement? Perhaps he realized that Oneida County is in the midst of a serious population decline. The “Oneida County Health Department’s 2005 – 2010 Community Health Assessment, Forces and Trends in Public Health” http://www.oneidacounty.org/oneidacty/gov/dept/health/CommunityHealthAssessment/Forces%20of%20Change%20in%20Public%20Health.pdf states that “While the Oneida County population is aging, it is also declining. This decline is due to the exodus of major employers and a significant decrease in jobs. A major population that has decreased is the young adult population, as area college graduates seek jobs elsewhere instead of staying in Oneida County.” WOW! This admission from one of the Oneida County’s own Department of Health reports.
This begs the question as to when did Oneida County make the HUGE reversal from a population declining County to a County with an expanding population? How did we go from having a glut of vacant housing, to needing to add new housing? The answer is that Oneida County has not even come close to turning the corner in terms of having an increasing population. But why is Oneida County subsidizing a new housing development in the Town of Kirkland with precious Oneida County sales tax revenue?
Where will the new residents, who are expected to reside in these new housing units, going to come from? More than likely, they will derive from other areas of the County. Now, would one deduce that the other residents from the remaining Towns in Oneida County be subsidizing the migration of real property tax payers to relocate to these new housing units? The Towns of Oneida County are being forced to forfeit their share of sales tax revenue to aid the loss of real property taxpayers in their own Towns in order to facilitate the expansion of this newly subsidized housing project.
This is somewhat reminiscent of the Mohawk Valley Water Authority’s deal to force the present rate payers to subsidize the proposed water expansion project to supply water to the Oneida Indian Nation. However, the Oneida Indian Nation is not even located within the Nine Mile watershed. At least the Town of Kirkland is located within the boundary of Oneida County.
So we are rewarding the behavior that we desire the least. Typical Oneida County incompetence hard at work to shakedown the taxpayer again. I beg all of you to follow the money trail with this endeavor.
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