At-Large Councilmember Kwame Brown floated a trial balloon shortly after the Radio One withdrawal announcement that perhaps that TIF money could be redirected to get Costco to come to Ward 5.
See this comment from an Adams Street NW resident:
So they want to take 6 million dollars of TIF money raised from taxing existing companies and spend it to attract a gigabucks corporation to build a big-box store and drive current merchants out of business? That's kind of putting the basket we are currently going to Hell in and mounting it on a luge!
Wouldn't it be better to spend $100,000 training people to run consumer cooperatives and start up small businesses, and give the rest back to the companies to pay their bills? Maybe just sell some lots around the Metro to builders to build houses or stores for whatever the market will pay for. Why the city thinks its politicians can decide these matters better than existing businesses has always been a puzzle to me. Why politicians think they should have large sums of money to play with has always, unfortunately, been much more clear, and undesireable.
I don't understand. Harry Thomas pledged to "keep the working class feel of Ward 5" during his election campaign. Ward 5 residents voted for Thomas and his pledge to keep the socio-economic status of the Ward both homogenized and skewed toward the lower end of the spectrum.
ReplyDeleteThat is why I voted for him; to keep the status quo. If you didn't want the status quo, you should have voted for someone else.
You can bet that Brown wouldn't have made this proposal without the express permission of Thomas. It is Thomas' Ward after all.
Ward 5 Rez.