Auburn IDA denies developer subsidy

Help a fella pay his country club dues?

In a rare occurrence in the Finger Lakes, an  Industrial Development Authority has declined to dish out taxpayer cash to a tin cup rattling developer.

On Tuesday, the Auburn Industrial Development Authority voted unanimously to deny a payment in lieu of taxes request by Calamar Construction, a Wheatfield-based company planning a $9.3 million independent senior housing complex.

"I don't believe in PILOTs for residential at all," AIDA board member and City Councilor Matthew Smith said. "There aren't going to be jobs, and it's a severe cause of market distortion."

Smith said if the project was needed and profitable it would be built without public assistance.

We've more than once seen this type of well-funded developer, who typically comes from a government regulatory background, bully local officials into  submission, so Auburn's decision is a breath of non-subsidized fresh air.  Next step:  get rid of all the IDAs and give their budgets back to the taxpayers.  

More here and here.

County government helps developers scam taxpayers, again

Once again, a Finger Lakes county industrial development agency has subsidized a wealthy developer, leaving taxpayers on the hook.

Citing delinquent payments, the Cayuga County Industrial Development Agency decided last week to terminate its payment in lieu of taxes agreement with Ontario Realty, Inc., owner and operator of the Sterling Renaissance Festival.

County director of Planning and Economic Development Stephen Lynch said Monday that the company did not make scheduled payments totaling $27,000 to the county and town of Sterling in February 2011 and 2012 and the Hannibal Central School District in September 2011.

Here's an idea:  let's terminate all the industrial development agencies and give the money back to the taxpayers.

Happily, some clarity from DiNapoli

New York State's top financial officer, Tom DiNapoli, got involved in politics in 1972, when he was elected to the Mineola Board of Education at age 18.  While he's as much a standard issue New York liberal Democrat as the next guy, we can assume that Tom likes his job and doesn't want to be held responsible for the Empire State's bankruptcy, or a potential Federal takeover leading the the dissolution of what was once the world's beacon of freedom and opportunity.  So it's no surprise that Tom might actually look into some of our rulers' more wasteful spending.

More tax breaks does not equal more jobs.

That's according to State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli's latest report on New York's industrial development agencies (IDAs).

In his fifth report on IDAs [PDF], DiNapoli says the number of jobs created by the local economic development engines dropped by 22,000 from the year before.

DiNapoli also cites a $483 million gap in what IDAs gave out in tax breaks and how much they took in via payments-in-lieu-of-taxes (PILOTs).

That breaks down, the report finds, to a $2,659 cost per job - up 9 percent from the year before.

"Taxpayers are not getting enough bang for their buck when it comes to IDAs," DiNapoli said in a statement.

Tom may be on to something, if Seneca County's IDA is any indication.  Rather than bringing the county a Toyota assembly plant or an Apple Computer research facility, the IDA seems to just be making work for itself.

The owner and operator of a proposed new McDonald’s Restaurant at 2500 Mound Road will likely receive financial assistance from the Seneca County Industrial Development Agency.

James Coriale, president of Jascor Inc., the owner-operator of the existing McDonald’s on Mound Road, has received town approval to demolish the existing building and construct a new restaurant on the same site.

It appears that struggling Finger Lakes taxpayers are once again being forced to subsidize a profitable business that, absent the generosity of the Seneca County IDA, most likely could have updated its facility without taxpayer cash.  Beneficiary James Coriale, a successful businessman, actually owns six McDonalds' restaurants.

"We look forward to a welcoming everyone to our grand re-opening later this year," said Coriale. Jim Coriale owns six McDonald’s Restaurants, with locations in Penn Yan and Ovid, in addition to McDonald's in Walmart locations in Camillus, Horseheads, & Watkins Glen.

We enjoy Mr. Coriale's restaurants and we congratulate him on building a successful business in one of the most anti-business climates in the US.  We just don't have any extra cash to invest right now, and it seems Tom DiNapoli may be starting to figure that out.