TIDD Lovefest

A resolution approving nine (9) tax increment financing districts was approved at the County Commission.  Heavy hitters with the business community piled on in support. 

The esteemed Sherman McCorkle did his spot-on Bush imitation.  He kept calling TIDDs ethical.  And my favorite, good planning.  It may be preferable to the wicked-crooked way that developers otherwise seek utility extensions on the public dime.  It sure must beat lobbying for pork at the legislature.  It creates more of a one-stop-shop for all your development subsidies. 

There was much more bluster about  misinformation provided by the opponents than about the absence of  information about the proposal in the first place.  The TIDDs resolution and master plan wasn't / isn't online.  Staff's presentation was one awkward sentence.  The SunCal rep got two minutes - which was not even enough time to outline hinted-at promises.

Proponents seemed slightly frantic and the testimony was over the top with optimism.  Perhaps they do really believe that there is no national economic trend that could possibly change their rosy assumptions.  Perhaps they really do believe that building new buildings constitutes sustainable economic development. 

Urgency is the tone behind this.  Seems it is a race, of sorts, between a bunch of vacant land on the edge over there and a bunch of vacant land on the edge over there.   From here, it looks like a race to the edge either way.  What lies between doesn't fit in this paradigm.  This is about investment in that edge land using this "amazing finance tool."   In a hurry.