Alex White, the Green Party’s candidate for mayor, unveiled his education plan at a brief press conference yesterday. Given that White’s opponent, Democrat Lovely Warren, has made education the cornerstone of her campaign, White had to sa
y something on the topic. But his plan is really a repackaged version of the Green Party’s fight to end tax incentives for developers.
“While there is a lot a Rochester mayor can say about education policy, there is really only one thing a Rochester mayor can do about education policy, and that is to pay for it,” White said.
The only other way for the mayor to exercise influence over the district is mayoral control, he said, and he’s opposed to that.
White said that if the City of Rochester and COMIDA stopped giving incentives and loans to developers, they could provide more desperately needed money for education. (The Rochester school district is No. 7 in child poverty in the nation, according to the Children’s Agenda, a child advocacy organization. More than half of the city’s children live in poverty.)
“It’s a matter of priorities and, as mayor, my priority will be providing the funding we need for education over tax breaks for wealthy landlords.”
White’s point is well-taken, if fantastical. The city and COMIDA are not about to end incentives, and even if they did, they’d put the region at an extreme competitive disadvantage over communities who do offer the deals.
And if White, as mayor, did try to boost the assessments of buildings that he says are underassessed — another of his talking points – he’d probably run afoul of the state and face an avalanche of lawsuits from property owners.
But part of a third party’s role is to raise ideas and criticisms. So on that level, White is doing his job.
This article appears in Oct 2-8, 2013.
“…they’d put the region at an extreme competitive disadvantage over communities who do offer the deals. “
That seems like a hell of a statement. Most of these developments are meant to service the people of Rochester. You can’t build a restaurant for Rochester customers in Syracuse. You can’t build a condo for Rochester residents in Buffalo.
A lot of developments could still be very profitable while paying a tax rate that allows us to maintain the city’s infrastructure and raise the next generation of Rochester (and the next generation of these businesses customers too.)
I get your point, Jason. But there are many, many examples of developers approaching different entities to see who would give them the best deal. The one that readily occurs to me is Xerox’s toner plant. They were considering a few options and wanted to know what COMIDA could do for them before they made their decision. They got their incentives, and stayed in Webster.
Chris Fien
I think the City of Rochester has a far stronger negotiating position than people realize. A lot stronger than the Town of Webster.
Cities like Rochester have inherit value that suburbs and rural areas don’t. Cities have high population densities that allow for less cost per family on infrastructure. The dense population also creates business opportunities that don’t exist elsewhere because of a larger population.
This extra wealth can be reinvested back into the city in the form of public works (like schools) or it can concentrated into the hands of a few people who live lives of idle luxury on the backs of working families.
Cities are being rediscovered by both empty nesters and a younger generation that reject the high environmental and social costs of the suburbs. The City of Rochester is more “valuable” than ever.
That the City still exists at all to be valuable is thanks to the people who stuck it out while people fled during the suburban sprawl of the last fifty years. So now that the City has this new value, it should be the people who have serve as it’s caretakers who benefit from it.
That’s not what’s happening though. Instead valuable land and infrastructure is being gifted developers for a dollar and decades of tax breaks. Real wealth in the form of valuable land and infrastructure is being used to enrich outside developers instead of the common good.
This has to end. I’m not saying that the City may not have to negotiate. But we need a strong mayor who knows the City’s TRUE value and negotiates a fair price for its use. Not somebody who will just give it away for a dollar.
Jason – A couple of points, First, one topic that is seldom mentioned, and certainly won’t be addressed in this election, is the cost of maintaining Rochester’s aged and crumbling infrastructure. As you may recall, just a few weeks ago a water main on State Street collapsed. And before that Broad Street had to be closed for major repairs due to deterioration of the road bed over the old canal aqueduct.
Secondly, it matters little what strong negotiating points city officials may, or may not, realistically have available when they sit down with developers if we continue to waste millions of local and state tax dollars on doomed projects like the Charlotte Marina. “If you build it he/they will come” might make a good line for a movie, but it makes a poor business case in the real world.
We give tax breaks to companies to bring jobs here, but we can’t pay for education and therefore don’t develop our talent pool so companies have less reason to come to Rochester. The job creation that is put forth is in construction and housing development with a flatlined population growth.
All of our projects are based on how to get in and out of Rochester… the marina, the ferry, the high speed rail, the bus station… or they are there for transitional populations visiting our colleges that for the most part will not stay because of the crime and the lack of good work.
I believe that transitioning to a fair tax system needs to be phased in over time, but the breaks are not keeping the companies here because we’re not developing talent that was born in this area and has ties here.
Finally, and most importantly… are these tax breaks working to keep job creating companies here, because a lot of these tax breaks are going to companies developing residential properties.. no jobs there outside of maintenance, which is again on a contract basis and not permanent.
“And before that Broad Street had to be closed for major repairs due to deterioration of the road bed over the old canal aqueduct.”
MJN- can you tell me how you found that out? I’ve been wondering why the area of Broad Street between Chestnut and Clinton has been in a state of disrepair all summer and I didn’t see anything about it in the news.
Peking Humonculous (shouldn’t that be Beijing Humonculous?) – As I recall in 2009 Rochester was granted several millions in federal stimulus funding to fill in the old canal bed/subway tunnel under Broad Street from the river to near Nick Tahou’s and to repair the deteriorated surface pavement. I think the work was completed in 2010. Not sure what the recent construction is all about.