BY DAN VALENTI

PLANET VALENTI NEWS AND COMMENTARY

(FORTRESS OF SOLITUDE, WEDNESDAY FEB. 1, 2023) — February already! Where does the time go? In official Pittsfield, it goes into the clutches of the Cyclopian “visionaries” of local government who continue to run the city into the ground.

Shows you what a lofty position Shire City once occupied, to have been pounded down for so long and still have something showing above the rising muck.

Critics can make a reasonable case against, just as backers can reasonably argue for, awarding Electro Magnetic Applications (aka Spacely Space Sprocket) another $250,000 from the PEDA fund. The PEDA stash is that $10 million pittance GE left the city for the privilege of booking town and leaving its industrial poisons remaining in the soil, waters, and air.

This quarter million is on top of

• $140K in money from the same account, given in November 2019.
• a five-year TIF (tax incremental financing).
• $429,000 in state grant funds.

Grand total of the public giveaway to the company: $839,000 in Kapanski Kash.

[ED. NOTE: EMA’s HQ is in the Denver, CO area. In addition to its lab at the BIC, the company has recently rented space at 66 West St. in town.]

———- ooo ———-

The company will use the latest quarter mill to expand its lab capabilities in Pittsfield at the BIC. The mayor, in her transmission documents to the council, said the money will support the $446,000 purchase of a new space radiation analysis system. EMA is promising a capital investment of $3 million and the eventual addition of eight additional full-time jobs. That would double current lab staffing. EMA says its radiation testing facility is the only one in the world.

The $250K will be released in phases, the Community Development Office promises:

• $150,ooo immediately to defray the cost of new equipment.
• $50,000 to be released six months after EMA documents three new full-time jobs.
• $50,000 released six months after five more full-time positions. The new posts will require a minimum salary of $60,000.

Much promise, for sure.

Also, much concern.

Let us count the ways. First is the five-year TIF. What’s the problem with TIFs? Same as the problem with public grant money.

• A TIF is essentially a billboard for saying your city is failing … without saying your city is failing. Cities with robust economies attract private investment without a reliance on TIFs.
• History tells us that TIFs don’t work. Remember EV Worldwide? Workshop Live? Spice Restaurant? The Beacon Cinema and its $2.3 million “forgiveness?” The Howard Building? Nuclea and Pat Muraca? And more recently, Wayfair’s call center with the 300 promised jobs becoming 40 jobs becoming no jobs and an empty building? Stop us if you’ve heard this one before.
• Like grants, TIFs redirect public money from general public use and into private hands.
• In Pittsfield, TIFs tend to be unsupervised, with little accountability, until it’s too late.
• TIFs are subsidies of private businesses.

• TIFs create Frankensteins — those messy public-private partnerships where the public takes the financial risk and the private gets whatever gains ensue. If the business fails, guess who gets holding the empty bag? Gotta mirror?
• TIFs get government overly involved in private enterprise, destabilizing the market.
• TIFs historically have failed to achieve the main purpose, which is to create economic development. In Pittsfield, TIFs have flopped.
• Data shows that for each $370,000 in TIF tax breaks, they create the equivalent of one retail job.
• When they fail, they leave the area worse off than before.
• Heavy use of TIFs such as you see in Pittsfield distort economic data, creating a false (and rosier) view that what actuality shows.
• TIFs give certain companies unfair advantages over competitors.
• TIFs allow administrations to play “kick the can” with a city’s economic woes.
• TIFs in Pittsfield invariably become political, because it makes it look like politicians and officials are “doing something.” Healthy economies don’t “play favorites.” Corrupt ones do.
• The constant use of TIFs erodes Berkshire County’s economic base.

Other than that, TIFs are miraculous!

None of this is to say EMA should not get the PEDA grant. Only time will tell if this public giveaway works out to the Kapanskis favor.

What say you?

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“Jetson, you’re fired!” — Mr. Arthur Spacely.

“OPEN THE WINDOW, AUNT MILLIE.”

LOVE TO ALL.

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