![Quote](images/misc/quote_icon.png)
Originally Posted by
SoonerDave
Giveaway incentives? Framed in all that wife-beating hyperbole, there's obviously no correct answer to that.
Do I support the consideration of reasoned incentive packages for which a business and a city perform mutual due diligence and find a benefit in both directions for waiving certain taxes or other fees? Of course. Carte blanche, every time? Of course not.
What, specifically, were the "new products and more offerings" she was wanting to deliver? I missed that part.
Bigger, thicker greeting cards?
Internet-connected music boxes?
USB-enabled Yankee Candles?
The point, zoo, is that - believe it or not - I'm there with you to a degree, at least in spirit, when a city makes a deal to one vendor while another vendor goes wanting. It's why the Bass Pro offering downtown was such a bad deal back in the day. But to extend this particular case - a business owner trying to bolster a fundamentally dying business model versus a new, in-demand retail offering, with considerable employment, tax, and revenue potential...I'd be cutting off my nose to spite my face to unilaterally and pre-emptively say that was a bad deal. It would be like someone trying to put the kibosh on, say, an electronics manufacturer because a store selling CB radios and tube televisions was having a tough financial time.
Ultimately, these two things aren't related. It's an understandable emotional response, to be sure, but Chisholm Creek isn't the reason this greeting card store is dying, and the greeting card store isn't why the city is considering (but apparently not yet approved?) an incentive package to this new retailer.
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