Need Cash from the city? If you are developer in SF, you may be able to get drive up service at city hall.
A South DaCola foot soldier attended the city council working session yesterday, and was surprised to hear the city was considering ‘cash incentives’ besides TIF’s to developers. What a slippery slope! They told me this about the meeting;
The room was packed with developers (invited by Darrin Smith). I sat next to a developer and a prominent city director. The developer kept making the remark ad naseum that he came to the meeting because he heard that they were handing out free money! He was giddy! After he had said the same thing over and over, the city director that was sitting next to him said,
“Yeah, maybe we should just have a drive-up?”
I already think it is a farce we give TIF’s to developers to re-develop older neighborhoods when we don’t give it to residents who buy older homes and fix them up (though community development does a nice job with low-interest equity loans and grants). But I draw the line at cash incentives. How does a tax payer benefit from giving a direct payment to a private business without receiving a service? We don’t.
And secondly, how dare a city director joke about it.
It cracks me up when local, pretend fiscal and political conservatives use local government to pick winners or to subsidize winners. So much for their faux belief in the “free market”.
I know what you mean, they cry socialism when it is snowgates or healthcare, but when it is handouts to them is it capitalism.