Reader Asks the Press about RDA...

Were we are the same RDA workshop and subsequent council meeting? Or you glossed over the fact of $7.4 million for the Southwest Commercial Site Improvements, un-named infrastructure projects of $5 million and un-named miscellaneous projects, of $7.5 million, termed, “Additional Commercial and Economic Development Projects."
I am not saying all RDA projects are bad, but with the states blurred fiscal/financial relationship and the amount of debt interest we are burdened with in the state, maybe we should take from the "property tax buffet" only what we need. Also, RDA's are reduced and even dissolved, the tax increment generated by the RDA stays with the City and in the general fund, where it can just as easily pay for the little league park.

Transparency needs to return to government. Regular citizens who make up the composition of City Councils should be able to just see revenues in and out from the general fund. RDA's create a non-transparent vehicle for private developer's to un-load their risk and debt. Did you note and if you did- why did you not report- that for every dollar borrowed there was a dollar of debt incurred for 30 years.

The hot potato and the elephant in the room is the amount of public debt. If RDA has to pay back over $2 million and the state is asking for a contribution of over $2 million to balance the state budget, why the rush into more debt? The Governor pledged no new taxes when he ran in 2003. What Republicans are being served is no new taxes, but new interest debt, fees and layoffs of teachers. The $15 Billion debt in 2003 created debt service payments as large as what is now needed to pay for the entire K-12, community college, state colleges and universities. But your paper insisted on more debt, because GOD forbid we do what Republican governors’ Reagan and Wilson did, raise the tax contribution of the top one-percent earners--who by the way are not the middle-class.