TIDD Sought by Private Developer Raises Yellow Caution Flag for City

In a work session Monday, the City Council will discuss an unusual deal with a Nebraska developer that could be a costly mistake. 

 

The deal concerns the old country club area, where Nebraska developers have built a “boutique” hospital that may help or hurt Las Cruces. They now want to add retail spaces near it. 

 

The developers want the City to create a Tax Incremental Development District (TIDD) in which city-authorized bonds would fund infrastructure and other costs that developers usually bear. The city would pledge substantial future increased GRT revenues to pay off the bonds. One document suggests that could be tens of millions of dollars. 

 

TIDDs can work well for public needs (such as downtown Las Cruces) where a city wants to develop or improve an area and increase GRT income, and uses a variety of developers to do so.

Las Cruces has never created a TIDD for a single developer. In Albuquerque, TIDDs to help single developers have a somewhat sorry history.

TIDDs are intended to draw new economic activity and jobs – not to move businesses into the district from surrounding areas. They shouldn’t be used unless they’re the only way to bring about desired development.

Here, the area is appealing, and the boutique hospital got built, so is a TIDD necessary? If developers screw this up, and bonds don’t get paid off, bondholders suffer. Does the City’s reputation or credit-rating? If the development just shifts business and jobs from downtown or El Paseo, that’s not NEW economic activity that enriches us – but Cruces tax monies would go to pay off the bonds. 

 

Legally, this developer is the brand-new “LC Nova LLC,” which lists Zachary Wiegert as manager and registered agent. The out-of-state entities that own the surrounding property are apparently involved, and the value of their property stands to increase, particularly if this works. 

 

Quick Google hits for Wiegert do not show mayors happily cutting ribbons.

Rather, one (from 2011) describes old friends of Wiegert’s trying to hold him and his partners to an oral agreement – but when they met, Wiegert “lost my temper” and shouted insults in an allegedly intimidating manner. The entity with which Wiegert was associated dropped out. The deal fell apart. 

 

In another, Project 19 LLC (for which Wiegert spoke) announced it was abandoning promised plans to develop the site of the old Omaha Civic Auditorium, though the same developers had expressed great excitement about the project. The deal required a major tenant. Omaha’s mayor said the developers’ failure to sign one was the reason they walked. 

 

Whoever was to blame, those reports don’t tend to instill absolute confidence these folks will do better by Las Cruces. Each included allegations Wiegert’s team wasn’t sticking to a deal. 

 

Perhaps more critical are the many questions the basic idea raises. If we use TIDDs in this way, won’t every developer want one? Should we do TIDDs at all? How do we protect our interests? How much potential “public good” do we require for a developer to get this help? If we’re now going to subsidize developments, hadn’t we better agree on coherent ground rules before facing the onslaught of applicants?

We owe it to ourselves, to residents near the TIDD, and to folks who buy the bonds – to be very cautious, and to be quite careful who gets help from our GRT revenues and gets to have the city’s good name behind their operations.

                                                          – 30 --


[The above column appeared this morning, Sunday, 28 June 2020, in the Las Cruces Sun-News, as well as on the newspaper's website and (presently) on KRWG's website.  A spoken version will air during the week on both KRWG and KTAL, 101.5 FM (www.lccommunityradio.org) and will also be available on-demand on KRWG's site. ]

 [I have little to add.  This was a column I felt less than usually comfortable writing, because I don't have detailed knowledge on the subject.  There appear to be some passionate economic-development fans advising the city who have not really looked at this thing as critically as one might wish, but also a lot of passionate opponents.  There seems, as there often is, a lot of misinformation floating around -- to which I hope I haven't contributed any.  It does seem that the weight of what evidence there is tends to suggest caution with this kind of development tool; the city should require pretty strong evidence that this development would really CREATE economic activity here rather than draw it from elsewhere in the area, to these developers' profit but with no significant gain to the City; and it's pretty obvious that if the ice cream truck starts offering stuff like this other kids will join the crowd around it.  So, yeah, I'd be instinctively skeptical.]

[Thanks to Greg Lennes, who responded to this column by supplying, this morning, a link to this story on a detailed study of how such things work out.  The referenced study was by something called the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy.  (It is not named after Abraham Lincoln, but after some wealthy but thoughtful gent named Lincoln, and studies how to use tax policies and such to improve things.  It lists as its six core concerns: low-carbon, climate-resilient communities and regions; efficient and equitable tax systems, reduced poverty and spatial inequality, fiscally healthy communities and regions, sustainably managed land and water resources, and functional land markets and reduced informality."  Sounds like more than six, but all laudable, although I've no idea what "reduced informality" is.  It also has a fairly heavyweight and varied board -- and several Lincolns still working for it.)  The study suggests some policy considerations and would be worth a read by city councilors.]

[Monday's work session is at 1 -- and can be watched on various media including  Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/CityofLasCruces/), YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/user/CLCTV20), the city's website (https://lascruces.civicweb.net/Portal/Video.aspx) and Cable Television 20. ]

(c) pgoodmanphotos 

(c) pgoodmanphotos

I should probably add this comment from a friend:

"I worked diligently along with many others in about 2010 on TIDDs here and in ABQ.  The NM TIDD law was newly passed then, focused on a big development in ABQ.  TIDDs were all the rage around the country.

"The TIDD concept, as with many others, is good.  The devil is in the details, starting with the state law.  The entity in control of the TIDD can do amazing things with the tax money they get, and they are free from all normally expected rules of transparency and good practice in how they spend the money.

"Cities have set up TIDDs to get things going, and suddenly found they gave away so much of their tax money they can no longer operate to support the new business, if it ever shows up - it really messes up the bottom line if overdone.  If Las Cruces approves this new one it could put them in a fiscal bind down the road.  The financial flow into the TIDDs is for a very long time.  And once started it is very difficult - maybe impossible - to stop.

"Since the City has yet, to my knowledge, to face their immediate fiscal problems due to the economic shutdown, I wonder if their fiscal analysis capability has the ability to assess the impact of this TIDD.

"The City's Downtown TIDD is a textbook example of the best way to set up and administer a TIDD, and a perfect use of the money.  The funds are from a bet against future growth - and that bet is not sure to pay off, so there is risk - and should be used conservatively and to build the infrastructure needed to enable new development.  The Downtown investments are yet to pay off - we'll see.

"A concerted effort stopped the County from approving a TIDD for Verde in the Santa Teresa area.  The way it was written it had the capability to bankrupt the County while enriching Verde.  

"The group got the state to turn down a huge TIDD in the petroglyphs area in ABQ which was a bold rip off.

"If the City sees the TIDD for this area as a "Must Have" for some reason, it should be set up as a City TIDD, just like the downtown one, with the City running it and controlling the use of the funds.  That is about the only way to keep it under control.

"The more things change....   It didn't take long for the TIDD lessons of 10 years ago to fade into history and the experience begin to repeat itself.  Reminds some of us old farts of the Police Review situation.  We had it in pretty good shape and getting better 10 years ago, then it was allowed to just fade, then lapse, and we are right back where we started.  Maybe we need an 'Office of Corporate Memory'."

Two Saturdays

One beautiful Saturday morning a family ventures out from pandemical isolation to the Farmers’ Market. Kids, grandma, and cousins are all enjoying aguas frescas. Suddenly a woman starts shouting at the family, “We don’t want you N_____s here!” The beautiful day is worse than ruined.

A school board member tells me this happened to an LCPS program director, whom I’ll call “Teacher.” I’m appalled. That it happened, and that no one spoke up for the family. 

 

A walk is planned for the following Saturday, to express support for the family and affirm that racism has no home here. Before the walk, I question the vendors, from whom we buy fresh local food weekly. None witnessed the attack. One, a conservative Korean War Vet, says someone should have shot the hate-spewing woman. Another says, “I did see a beautiful black family, kids and grandparents, maybe 15 people, having a great time.” (Later I learn that it happened a little north and west of the Plaza, where vendors were very unlikely to hear it.) 

 

I join the walk. Without publicity, we’re a good-sized group, including U.S. Rep. Xochitl Torres-Small. I meet Teacher, her mother, and her eldest daughter. She’s left her two youngest at home, uncertain what might happen. This week, crafts vendors have returned to Main Street. They and others are supportive, though unaware of the previous Saturday’s incident.

Outside City Hall, Teacher and some school board members speak. Teacher truly teaches us, by the grace and directness with which she describes the attack and expresses her appreciation of the support. “I didn’t realize my Superintendent would be like a second mother, calling to inquire about the kids.” Afterward I have the pleasure of talking with Teacher awhile, and days later we discuss the attack on radio.

The walk is a little island of peace and sanity. The attack – coming at a moment of joy and laughter, when the market must have seemed a refuge – was a grim reminder that there is no refuge in the U.S. if you are not white. The attacker didn’t permanently harm Teacher, who recognizes that the attacker revealed more about herself than about anyone else. Teacher’s mother, from Georgia, may have experienced worse, and would have liked to leave that in the past. The children are struggling with an ugly memory they’ll digest, and learn from, in their own ways. (Some day, “n___” will be as dusty an insult as “pleb” or “tsoulus.”)

Friends and I discussed what to do in such a situation. Stand with the family, absolutely. Some friends said ignore the attacker, don’t make it worse. I might quietly ask the woman, “What’s so weak or poisoned in your life that you have to take things out on strangers?” She is simply so unable to handle her pain or problems that she’s lashing out wildly at a family with more love, education, and class than she could aspire to. 

 

The attacker has earned our hostility; what she did is despicable; but her hatred is a poisoned cup she offered the family – who were wise enough not to drink it. Hating poisons the hater. One might pity her, but this old white guy shouldn’t advise anyone what to feel. 

 

Although we wish nothing had happened, this ugly incident inspired our community to share its love and respect for Teacher and her wonderful family, with hopes that this place can still feel like home to them. 

Racism has no place here. Racism has no place here.

                                                     – 30 -- 

"Uncertainty"  (c) 2020 pgoodmanphotos

[The above column appeared this morning, Sunday, 21 June 2020, in the Las Cruces Sun-News, as well as on the newspaper's website and on KRWG's website.  A spoken version will air during the week on KRWG and also on KTAL, 101.5 FM (www.lccommunityradio.org), and will be available on demand later today on KRWG's site.]

[I know that the woman who shouted at the family is an outlier.  The overwhelming trend of history is toward recognizing that we are one human race and come in all shades and a variety of ethnic groups.  I truly believe that some day only historians will recognize "the N-word."  That is so despite a brief wave of nativism and ethnic violence represented in the elections of folks such as Donald Trump and Narendra Modi and in Britain's "Brexit."  However, vigilance is always wise.  There are particular dangers present in the 2020 election.]

[Meanwhile I'm grateful to have met Teacher and her family, though I loathe the attack that sparked that meeting.]

Supreme Court Gets Something Right

The U.S. Supreme Court says limiting worship services to 25% of the fire code’s maximum occupancy does NOT violate the U.S. Constitution.

By a 5-4 margin, California’s emergency health rules passed muster because “Similar or more severe restrictions apply to comparable secular gatherings, including lectures, concerts, movie showings, spectator sports and theatrical performances, where large groups of people gather in close proximity for extended periods.”

Courts resist interfering with state governments. Particularly where the issues are fact-intensive, fluid, scientifically uncertain, and urgent, courts say officials “should not be subject to second-guessing by an ‘unelected federal judiciary,’ which lacks the background, competence, and expertise to assess public health and is not accountable to the people.”

These decisions are complex matters of judgment. There’s no clear violation of rights, and it appears preachers of God are being treated just like teachers – or preachers of other subjects. (Conservative Chief Justice John Roberts, who wrote this opinion, showed similar restraint upholding Obamacare and dissenting against recognition of gay marriage.)

The decision also shows the danger (or delight) of letting Donald Trump continue to occupy the Casa Blanca. Trump-appointee Brett Kavanaugh wrote the dissent, in which Trump-appointee Neil Gorsuch joined, as did Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito.

Reading that dissent, I paused. Kavanaugh wrote: “The basic constitutional problem is that comparable secular businesses are not subject to a 25% occupancy cap,” including factories and pet-grooming shops. Treating comparable businesses differently would be a constitutional problem; but hadn’t Roberts said that wasn’t happening? (Justices should not be disagreeing on facts, but on the facts’ legal significance. 

 

Then I realized what Kavanaugh was up to. 

 

Because judicial precedent (previous relevant cases) matters, the language of lawyers and judges is often less “A is right, B is wrong,” than “C, in a previous decision, is more like A than it is like B.” For example: if we’re litigating who owns a blue coffee cup (something no court has ever decided), if there are decisions saying I own blue things, I’ll argue that I win; and if other decisions state you own bowls, dishes, and wineglasses, your lawyer will argue that the cup is functionally similar to those – so you win. 

 

The majority opinion compared churches with universities and lecture halls. Kavanaugh says churches are like factories and pet-grooming places, not classes and lectures.  Kavanaugh’s argument is absurd, but it’s a great example of justices wanting to reach a particular result when the law mandates otherwise, and resorting to a silly argument. Among other things, factories and offices are often large and spread out, with employees sometimes working relatively alone, rather than sitting and listening and singing all in one room. For public-health purposes in a pandemic, the physical differences are significant.

Kavanaugh’s and Gorsuch’s willingness to espouse such a dumb position seems to say, “We owe the Donald, and as Christian fundamentalists are his people, we’ll go all out for them. Screw the Constitution.”

(Wonder if they thought through this idea of churches being like factories and gyms. If churches are essentially businesses, producing faith for profit, rather than places where people seek and share spiritual solace and exchange ideas, then why can’t they be taxed like factories and tattoo parlors?)

But seriously. Even non-lawyers should be able to see how far Kavanaugh is from honest legal decision-making. In this country, we should all hope our justices will show at least some respect for law.

                                                – 30 --

[The above column appeared this morning, Sunday, 14 June 2020, in the Las Cruces Sun-News, as well as on the newspaper's website and on KRWG's website.  A radio commentary based on this column will be available later today on KRWG's website under News / Local Viewpoints, and will air during the week both on KRWG and on KTAL, 101.5 FM (www.lccommunityradio.org).]

[You can read the U.S. Supreme Court opinion here.  It's relatively short.  Of course, the chutch has emphasized the procedural nature of the case -- standards are higher when asking for pre-trial injunctive relief than in a full trial -- but I would tend to expect the same result if the parties push on for some final ruling.  If I were Roberts, I would ask why I should tie the hands of governments in future pandemics; and worship services would still seem more like lectures or college classes than like factories or pet salons, even a year from now.] 

[Obviously I agree with the decision. As the Ninth Circuit opinion, by 2-1, said, “We’re dealing here with a highly contagious and often fatal disease for which there presently is no known cure.  In the words of Justice Robert Jackson, if a ‘court does not temper its doctrinaire logic with a little practical wisdom, it will convert the constitutional Bill of Rights into a suicide pact.’ ”
Further, I've wondered recently, talking to friends who do not wear masks, just what version of Christianity holds that it's appropriate to risk others' health or lives.  One acquaintance told me yesterday that there were "spiritual reasons" for omitting the mask.  Another said his faith and his avoidance of masks were two separate things, but I still suggested that despite his political irritation at being told by the State to wear a mask, I suspected his God might want him to do so too.  We agreed to disagree.  I still love him and his family.]

[Roberts's deference to elected governments in this case was consistent with his votes in other notable cases, on both sides of the ideological chasm. When Roberts led the Supreme Court in upholding Obamacare's individual mandate against conservative challenges in 2012, for example, he justified his decision as an act of deference to the elected officials who enacted the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act to life, writing "It is not our job to protect the people from the consequences of their political choices." (National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius). Similarly, in 2015, when the Court recognized the constitutionality of gay marriage, Roberts dissented, . Criticizing the majority for second-guessing the wisdom of the democratically accountable lawmakers that prohibited same-sex unions." (Obergefell v. Hodges).]

George Floyd, Donald Trump, & All of Us

There’s way too much to say.

A uniformed man with three armed pals keeps his knee on the neck of a prone man for many minutes, and when the prone man politely says he can’t breathe, his tormentor taunts, “Then get in the car!” – keeping his knee on that neck until the man dies.

The “president” of a country threatens to turn the military on citizens. Embarrassed by mounting failures and by having been whisked away to a bomb shelter for protection, he wants to distract folks with a photo of himself holding up a Bible before the boarded-up windows of a church. Because peaceful protesters are in the way, including church people, he teargasses them to facilitate the photo op. (Saddam Hussein’s Iraq? Syria? A dictator in some Latin American “shithole country?”) 

 

Black Lives Matter. All lives matter. We shout “Black Lives Matter!” because our country often acts as if they don’t, and requires reminding. Loudly. We don’t mean black lives matter more than white. If we shouted “Save the Eagles!” because they were endangered by people shooting them, would we be ostracized for omitting that cats and dogs matter too? If followers of some small sect were routinely thrown to the lions, would shouting “Christian lives matter!” mean centurions’ lives didn’t?

Blue lives matter too. And are sometimes endangered. While some cops are white supremacists or just-plain-bullies, most are not. Racist or not, cops are on the front-lines of the war between a racist society and people of color, and between people of property and people without. They need better training and pay. They also need to understand that a laudable loyalty to one’s “brothers” can make them accessories to murder. 

 

We are all part of the problem. All somewhat racist. That doesn’t excuse racist cops; but owners of property or businesses are the ones police are generally protecting; and if we are silent about police excesses – or a systemically racist police department – we are complicit.

At a recent vigil in Albert Johnson Park, a woman eloquently illustrated “white privilege” by reading a list of activities, such as jogging, going to the store, selling CD’s, asking someone to leash a dog, waiting for a friend in Starbucks, even sitting home watching TV. After each activity she said the name of someone who’d been killed or harassed for doing it while black. 

 

Where whites act casually, blacks must always be wary. My closest friend in San Francisco was a fellow lawyer, highly skilled and successful, a star in his field. But when he washed his white convertible in the driveway of the house he owned, cops often intruded to ask who he was and what he was doing. Wanna guess why? 

 

I could write whole columns (nay, books!) on white privilege, and the direct and indirect ways it has helped me; I’ve watched black friends have to be better and tougher and politer than anyone white, just to stay in the game. I’ve also seen firsthand how racism, broken families, and poor educations can stunt kids’ hearts and minds. Yes, whites have problems too; but people of color didn’t cause most of those. 

In November we’ll be asked to retain a personally racist President who has exacerbated a pandemic and is supported most passionately by white supremacists – or choose a highly imperfect alternative with better skills and experience and some human decency. I think it’s an important choice.

                                         – 30 --

[The above column appeared this morning, Sunday, 7 June 2020, in the Las Cruces Sun-News, as well as on the newspaper's website and KRWG's website ("White Privilege, Black Lives, and the Thin Blue Line").  A spoken version is availoable on KRWG's website ("A Nation in Crisis"), and will air during the week on KRWG and on KRAL, 101.5 FM (www.lccommunityradio.org)] 

12 Sept 2001 - copyright PGoodman

[This column was more than usually a struggle to write.  I knew and felt too much.  I have lived longer than most folks, and my life has been more intertwined with the lives of people of color than is true of most whites -- and I've been the foreigner, the "different" one, in many situations, from Harlem to eastern Tibet.  So I started to write about that, but wanted to take myself out of it.  A future post, perhaps.  Then I tried to write more abstractly of our current political situation, including but not limited to the ethnic question of blacks and whites.  (I try even to avoid using the word "race" because, damn it, we are one race, human.)  Way too long and maybe too intellectualized.  Another future post?  So I tried a third time.]

[I had forgotten this, until early this morning as I sat out back editing my soon-to-be-available novel, set in 1914, in which a black artist relates this to a white artist he has just met, but at the 1876 Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia, the painting "Under the Oaks" won the grand prize.  At the front gate, guards routinely turned away a Negro.  He was Edward Bannister, arriving to accept his award.  (I have also read that the judges, upon learning the skin color of the painter, discussed rescinding the prize, but were dissuaded by other artists' threats to withdraw their works from the show.)] 

[I should also note that on our 3June "Speak Up, Las Cruces!" show on KTAL, 101.6 FM, we talked to a number of people who had attended Monday's vigil at Albert Johnson Park and/or had experienced being of color in Las Cruces.  Particularly moving was the explanation of Russell Bell -- the 70-year-old gentleman who had first stood out on that streetcorner alone, just because he had to, wondering if he looked like a fool -- of what he felt and thought.  It's on our archive, at www.lccommunityradio.org]

[I should probably note that although my life has intertwined tightly with many black lives, reporting news as a young man and writing columns the past decade, and other activities, have given me the privilege of coming to know, trust, and care about a number of law-enforcement officers over the years.  I appreciate their situation, and like them as people, even while disagreeing vigorously with some of them about national politics.]

[ A [white] friend read this column and commented this morning:

 

Thanks for the excellent presentation of our “reality”.

My take on life has been an evolutionary journey.  My childhood was spartan by most standards but I always had what I needed and I always had kind people in my life.  Not all people were kind but the scale was heavily weighted in favor of kindness.

Since I lived in 9 states from coast to coast I felt like an alien at times and I observed injustice far more often than I experienced it.

So it has been quite an experience to see so much crap being dumped on people who are simply living the best they know how.  It’s been reassuring to see that kindness is always lurking in even the worst situations.

But at the end of life I truly would like to see this country overthrow the rotten commercial politics once and forever.  ]