Many of us ridiculed the council's decision to provide a $250k tax abatement for McDonalds as this was the epitome of council group think and it became a community laughingstock right before the election. But tonight we had part 2 with the city council voting to give Subway a $450k tax abatement for creating 2 full time jobs.
Yes you read that correctly.
After listening to Elissa McGauley, Fort Wayne Dept of Economic Development, sell the McDonald's abatement as some sort of "special circumstance" she now decided to back an even more lucrative abatement to Subway Systems who owns 24 stores. This is flat out ridiculous. $450k for 2 damn jobs!?! Economic Development Fort Wayne style I suppose. It's important to point out that this is the Subway that was bought as part of the Harrison Square development. So they are moving the store 3 blocks down the road and we're supposed to give them a half-million dollars for gracing our downtown with their presence?
They also tried to bamboozle the council by saying they were creating 12 jobs when councilman Shoaff rightly pointed out that they were only creating 2 new full time jobs and 7 part time jobs. The rest of the jobs were simply being transferred from the old location. Crawford was also very outspoken against this nonsense asking if there was some kind of minimum amount of job creation necessary for an abatement.
In the end the council approved the abatement 5-3 with Crawford, Shoaff and Schmidt voting against this colossal waste of money. What's next? $10 Million for an In-and-Out burger? At least it would be original. Welcome to Fort Wayne - we've never seen a major fast food franchise we wouldn't subsidize...
UPDATE: I didn't see this story covered in either of today's newspapers. Just another example of why blogs are an important news outlet for every community...
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8 comments:
I saw that too on the council agenda. I'm very disappointed that once again we are subsidizing and rewarding low-wage jobs. Why, exactly, can't city council get their hands around the fact that not all created jobs are equal?
What do our new city council members have to say about this?
I have to maintain that a majority of the members of City COuncil do not understand Economic Development...
Mike Sylvester
I told you guys a couple weeks ago to watch out. "You have not seen nothing yet," I believe is the words I used on this or one of the other blogs talking about this.
I don't have the numbers but just how much has the city paid for this Subway to relocate? This includes what they got for the old place, relocation fees, and now tax breaks. Who owned the property they bought for this new location?
Does this sound like "sweetheart?"
It's getting sad when the city council thinks "Subway" is something worth giving tax breaks.
Better SubWay than McDungbucket's. Still, $450k to ANY fast food restaurant, chain or otherwise, is completely preposterous.
Low wage jobs aren't the only things for which fast-food restaurants are known.
What about the health issues with the food itself? Indiana is ranked near the bottom on obesity, yet we now decide to start encouraging even more of these fast-food junk locations?
I don't care how much Jarrod said he lost eating at Subway, he is the exception to the rule.
I just heard that Showgirls, shangrila, stewies, brandies, hooters, budoir noir were all getting multimillion tax abatements, for all the money they bring in from out-of state trevelers, and truckers, not to mention all the jobs they create for pretty milfs, cougars, and bunny wannabe's, so they can raise their kids on the equivalent of GM/UAW pay, keeping them off of welfare, and unemployment.
Now if they would all get some kind of group health care benefits, like vegas culinary workers, and SEIU workers get, then we might be on to something?
Ironically, the idiots who sponsored this abatement thought they were buying a transportation system for half-a-mill. (/sarcasm)
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