Reactions to Rivers City Club Speech
I wasn’t able to attend Mark Rivers City Club speech but there seems to be a lot of reactions out there to it.
The Boise Weekly has a very short post regarding his comments about the Boise Hole:
But either way, the vacant lot at the corner of Eighth and Main is overvalued and underutilized, Rivers said. Rivers reminded the gathered city fathers and mothers that The Hole is just one project among many downtown.
The Guardian has their usual slant on anything that effects taxes:
When asked how much his projects contribute to the Boise City tax base, he danced around, but never came up with the truth which is NEARLY NOTHING…most of his tax money goes to the CCDC so it can subsidize more growth.
The IBR has a little more complete coverage and a lively discussion in the comments:
“If you think you can stop this growth, it’s coming,” he said. “We have to be smart with how we react to their arrival. Infill development is the answer clearly.”
Chris mentioned Richard Florida in his last post, and I know that these are the same principles that drive Mark and the types of developments he does. It’s why Mark put up almost all of the money for the WaterCooler.
I personally think that a vibrant downtown is critical to the right kind of growth. We don’t need anymore sprawl. We need smart growth. We need to keep the young talent we have (cool downtown’s are a proven attraction) and we need a place where the Creative Class can mingle together and share ideas (once again a cool downtown works well for this).
The growth is coming. We can either be proactive and attract the type of growth we want or be reactive and continue to complain about traffic, air quality and sprawl (although people are always going to complain about that).
The way I see it (and I’m no expert) but we can either pay for it up front now with taxes, bonds etc and build the infrastructure we’ll need or pay for it later with decreased quality of life.
Let me know am I way off base here? Are there better options than the one’s Mark is proposing? Because if there are, I haven’t hear any.
Dave Frazer at the Guardian blog is a good photographer, and a good blogger, but he knows zero about public finance and administration. Does anyone give a rusty-dusty that revenues generated by BoDo flow back to an urban development district? I don’t. Judging the value of a project based upon how much tax revenue it produces for the City is ridiculous. Should we judge Dave Frazer the same way? Consider him a waste of breath because he consumes more tax dollars than he contributes? That is the reality for most Idahoans, and for Idaho as a whole as a net tax recipient.
The fallacy that anti-growth folks operate under is that if we don’t grow, things will stay the same. That is utter nonsense. Stasis is a theoretical concept only. If we do nothing to plan for and manage growth, this area will regress. There is no stasis folks - not an option.
Now, if Frazer wants to talk about eliminating CCDC and the urban development districts, that is a policy discussion we can have. But in the end he’s still going to fall on the side of zero growth so his input is not valid or consequential.
Can’t say it enough. I welcome ANYONE or ANY BUSINESS that wants to pay their fair share of taxes and be non-polluting citizens. The current business mantra is, “We don’t need to pay taxes because our employees pay taxes.”
Well folks, those employees all consume services in the form of roads, schools, sewers etc.
CCDC, the Chamber of Commerce and the growthophiles are all sending a message saying, “If you can’t make it on your own we will pay you to come here in the form of tax breaks and subsidies.”
Many seem to think along the lines of BIG families, even if you can’t afford to feed, clothe, and house them.
Chris–The courts (including the Supremes) disagree with you with regard to municipal finance.
I should probably clarify here that I was not attacking Dave - I know and like Dave. My point should have been clear that if we judge all projects on whether they contribute tax revenues, that makes no sense. I’ll say it again - if that is the criteria, and we apply it it citizens then neither Dave Frazier or Chris Blanchard are of any value to the City of Boise or the State of Idaho because we are net tax recipients, i.e., we consume more in government services than we pay in taxes. You don’t pay your fair share, Dave, and neither do I. Thanks Dave and Butch for letting us get away with that!
Where municipal finance is concerned, Dave, you have a very Idaho-centric view. Idaho is a unique beast when it comes to municipal finance. Idaho does not operate like most states, and in the minds of many (most) it is severely detrimental to the efficient operation of both cities and counties. We have the most restrictive laws governing municipalities west of the Mississippi. I’ll grant that you have won some victories in Idaho courts but that does not translate to knowing comparative municipal finance.
And not to invalidate your input as I may have done in the previous comment, but the Guardian has a very specific stance - no growth. That is not a realistic position. We can’t very well convene a forum and say, “the city is growing, how should it grow?” If your answer is, “it shouldn’t” pretty much all that can be said after that is, “point taken.”
And as I offered up in the last comment Dave, I think the relevance of CCDC is a great issue to discuss. Other people think so as well. But saying we shouldn’t grow because the Urban Renewal District gets all the money makes no sense. If that is your position then the task is to dismantle the urban renewal district and it’s accompanying agency, not try to put the brakes on growth. That’s just not gonna happen.
I’m all for what you do with the Guardian, Dave, and when I was at the City I encouraged them to be part of the debate and do it openly. Sometimes you are right, sometimes wrong (both those apply to me too), sometimes we just disagree, and that’s ok too. I just can’t see condemning Mark Rivers for following the law. If what he wants to build falls inside the Urban Renewal District that is your fault and my fault - not his. Don’t like the way the way the mayor and council operate and the laws they make. Change them. But I won’t call Rivers, et. al. evil as you do - they are just playing by the rules established by the people that you and I elected.
See you at coffee.
What is more important? Ideas or implementation? (Remember General Doriot’s famous maxim?)
As some of you know, I get to hang out with some of *the* expert economic geographers & others out on the bleeding edge of what we know about growing economies [The Max Planck crew]. What real economic geographers do for fun is… make fun of Dick Florida. He’s got a great story, compelling & one we might like to believe but… the data just doesn’t support it. Rather, the *opposite* is true.
But, if you think about it, that is very good news. If you want a strong “creative class” you first need a strong entrepreneurial class.
What is the limiting factor for any local economy? Ideas? Or Implementers? It’s the entrepreneurial capital, human and social, that makes the difference. Who makes it happen? (True Confessions: Heck, in my own life, I’m great on ideas, but where I’ve succeeded is where I was entrepreneurial.)
And the key ingredients of entrepreneurial capital are largely intangible - how many people in your community have or deeply understand how expert entrepreneurs think??
Think about tech transfer - if you were at IdaVation & heard Brian from the U of U… you heard that’s the key. All the great IP in the world means little without entrepreneurs to bring them to market.
Even in the most benighted places, ideas are not the scarce resource. Entrepreneurs are the scarce resource. And that’s good news - we know how to help them - it’s not for amateurs, but it’s feasible.
Inventors are sexier… but innovators feed the bulldog. And how can you say an idea is “great” if it never becomes reality?
As long as we get the innovators together, we’re good. That’s what you see in a vibrant, resilient local economy.
And if you get the innovators rockin’, *then* you’ll start surfacing great ideas like crazy. But remember - take a Grade A innovator & a Grade B idea every time over a Grade B innovator with even a Grade A+ idea.
Boise (and Idaho) is blessed with some great innovators… we need to grow or attract more of them!
[soapbox font/off]